NEWS SPECIAL REPORT


Abta seminar: Association held an Apprenticeships in Travel event for travel firms and training providers, hosted by Hill Dickinson. Lee Hayhurst reports


Apprentices at the seminar were asked about their experiences by Jeanie Logan (pictured), a trainer at Damar Training. Josh Smith of Clarity Travel, Connor Bukeij of BCD Travel and James Dishington of Thomas Cook all said fitting in training with their day jobs was the biggest challenge.


‘Time to spend apprenticeships cash’


Employers in the travel sector who are paying the new apprenticeships levy were told now is the time to start thinking about how they are going to spend their funding.


In April, firms with annual


payrolls above £3 million started paying a levy equating to 0.5% of their salary bill. This goes into a fund that employers can draw from to run apprenticeship schemes. Firms have two years to spend


the money available to them before it can be claimed by the government for general spending. Annette Allmark, director of


strategy policy at performance consultancy People 1st, said travel companies should by now have started putting plans in place. “Our advice is still do not panic,


but if you are an employer you are now at the stage where you should be starting to think about it. Time is going by quite quickly,” she said. Allmark said a survey of


levy‑paying employers in the UK visitor economy sector, including travel and hospitality, found nearly half did not fully understand the levy. “We still have some work to do


here,” Allmark said. However, 58% said they were


“If you are an employer you are now at the stage where you should be starting to think about it”


confident that they will see a positive return on investment from the levy, but two‑thirds said they had no means in place to assess this. “Even large organisations are


finding it quite difficult getting their head round how to do this,” Allmark said. The survey found 40% of


businesses have moved on to new apprenticeship standards established by companies for their sectors including one for leisure and corporate travel agents. “Employers are getting used to


the new system but they need to make sure they have all the tools and support to make sure it works in practice,” said Allmark.


The travel retail sector has an industry standard for apprentices that it can be proud of and delegates were encouraged to take on apprentices. Nicky Duffy, UK operations manager at corporate travel agent Clarity Travel and a member of the Travel Apprenticeship Board, said the decision was taken to have a single travel retail standard because people move around the industry. “It makes sense to have


transferable skills,” she said. “We need young people; they


may have low skill but they have massively high will. “We’ve got a standard we can be really, really proud of.”


‘We can be really proud of sector’s apprenticeship standard’ Duffy said all companies


need to look at the types of employees they need and to mould their apprenticeship strategy around that. Danielle Grant, HR manager


at Royal Caribbean Cruises, said the operator wants to use the levy funds to address talent requirements for existing staff as well as new entrants. “We want to get this right, to


make sure the right investment is being put back into the organisation,” she said. “We see true benefits of having


young talent and other talent take us where we want to go.” James Williams, employment partner at Hill Dickinson,


said under the new regime apprentices have full-time employee status. He said there are no obligations


in law beyond the training period but he warned firms against taking on apprentices just to use up the levy allowance or as cheap labour. “As a matter of good practice


you should be going in with the idea that this is something that will endure beyond the apprenticeship,” he said. Hill Dickinson is looking


into whether firms can claw back some of their costs if apprentices leave, but said incentives to retain staff might be a better option.


14 travelweekly.co.uk 9 November 2017


Page 1  |  Page 2  |  Page 3  |  Page 4  |  Page 5  |  Page 6  |  Page 7  |  Page 8  |  Page 9  |  Page 10  |  Page 11  |  Page 12  |  Page 13  |  Page 14  |  Page 15  |  Page 16  |  Page 17  |  Page 18  |  Page 19  |  Page 20  |  Page 21  |  Page 22  |  Page 23  |  Page 24  |  Page 25  |  Page 26  |  Page 27  |  Page 28  |  Page 29  |  Page 30  |  Page 31  |  Page 32  |  Page 33  |  Page 34  |  Page 35  |  Page 36  |  Page 37  |  Page 38  |  Page 39  |  Page 40  |  Page 41  |  Page 42  |  Page 43  |  Page 44  |  Page 45  |  Page 46  |  Page 47  |  Page 48  |  Page 49  |  Page 50  |  Page 51  |  Page 52  |  Page 53  |  Page 54  |  Page 55  |  Page 56  |  Page 57  |  Page 58  |  Page 59  |  Page 60  |  Page 61  |  Page 62  |  Page 63  |  Page 64  |  Page 65  |  Page 66  |  Page 67  |  Page 68