The Quality Assurance and Industry HR Development Directorate manages various schemes and seals to improve, aid and offer opportunities to main tourism sectors within the industry. This Directorate is committed to providing a platform of standards and quality which is backed by numerous training and development initiatives to assist tourism stakeholders to reach higher levels of service and product delivery.
The Quality Assurance Seal is the largest project which this directorate is responsible for. It sees to recognise local restaurants, visitor attractions and destination management companies that present customers with the highest competences in terms of quality. Interested parties can download the QA seal application and criteria from www.qualityassuredmalta.com.
The Directorate is also responsible for:
The Special Thanks and Recognition Awards is a scheme that has been running since 2005. It sees to awards outstanding employees that are nominated by tourists for their commitment, hospitality and service. Participating in this scheme is free and online nomination forms are available from www.starawardsmalta.com.
This Certification is a national scheme that recognises hotel properties that manage to satisfy a number of environmentally-friendly requirements such as the re-use grey water, control of chemicals and the adoption of sustainable management systems . This scheme had been launched in 2002 and the certification's criteria is built in conformity with the Global Sustainable Tourism Council requirements.
This initiative involves a Tourism Career Awareness Programme for secondary students, which includes various activities, such as participation in fairs, teacher training, career exposure and talks to attract students to start a career in the tourism industry including placements.
A campaign aimed at encouraging young students to learn about the value of tourism and appreciate Malta as the tourism product. This campaign has seen various initiatives over the years, including working with the Drama unit in primary schools, the distribution of various books in schools such as Turu u s-Sahharina and il-Grajja tat-Teatru and annual calendar of visits, focusing on history, heritage, culture and natural environment.
- Erasmus Digital Marketing Traineeships
This Directorate, with the sponsorship of Erasmus , in 2016 has launched the very first Digital Marketing Professional Traineeship in Rome offered to local restaurants. Participants are given the opportunity to learn how to adapt social media platforms such as Instagram, Facebook and Google Ad Words for the improvement of their businesses. Given the success of this project, it has been extended to visitor attractions and destination management companies. This project shall continue to run until the year 2020.