[PHNOM PENH POST]
A culinary school that Cambodia had hoped to open with help from
Switzerland will soon be a reality, the Ministry of Tourism said on
Monday.
Minister Thong Khun told reporters he had secured an agreement to open a training centre in May.
The
school, which will fall under the National Polytechnic Institute of
Cambodia, will teach Cambodian food-service workers how to cook various
international cuisine, something that is increasingly important as the
tourism industry here continues to grow.
According to official figures, foreign tourists to the Kingdom in 2010 jumped 16 percent to 2.5 million from the year before.
“We
hope that Cambodia will have human resources with better skills thanks
to the opening of a new school to give services to tourists,” Thong Khon
said. The minister last week had said that he hoped to sign a
memorandum of understanding with Switzerland during his visit there last
week in order to open the school. He did so on March 16.
The
first crop of students will number between 200 and 300. Going forward,
students who perform especially well will be granted scholarships for
further study in Switzerland.
Ang Kim Eang, president for
Cambodian Association of Travel Agents, welcomed the school, saying that
tourists' culinary experience here is just as important as the
Kingdom's cultural and environmental destinations. And tourists would be
more likely to come, and stay longer, if there were a wider breadth of
food choices for them.
“We think that training on subjects in
cooking food will help Cambodia increase attraction from foreign
tourists,” said Ang Kim Eang.
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