Close to 2,000 T&T cit­i­zens will soon have a chance at em­ploy­ment with Roy­al Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al as the Min­istry of Tourism will sign a his­toric Mem­o­ran­dum of Un­der­stand­ing (MOU) with Roy­al Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al.

Ac­cord­ing to Tourism Min­is­ter Ran­dall Mitchell the MOU will be signed dur­ing a cer­e­mo­ny at the Hilton Trinidad and Con­fer­ence Cen­tre .

The Tourism Min­is­ter will rep­re­sent the Gov­ern­ment and rep­re­sent­ing Roy­al Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al will be Rus­sell Ben­ford, VP Gov­ern­ment Re­la­tions, Amer­i­c­as and Wendy Mac­Don­ald, VP Gov­ern­ment Re­la­tions, Caribbean.

Once this MOU is signed, the process of ac­cept­ing ap­pli­ca­tions be­gins.

And this Mitchell said, will pave the way for a ma­jor re­cruit­ment dri­ve which will en­able na­tion­als to work on any of the com­pa­ny’s 24 ves­sels.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, they will be a part of the work­force for the sec­ond largest cruise line in the world.

“Apart from be­ing on an ag­gres­sive dri­ve to re­cruit staff for its grow­ing fleet, Roy­al Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al has shown a keen in­ter­est in Trinidad and To­ba­go as a tourism des­ti­na­tion and as a part­ner in the de­vel­op­ment of the lo­cal cruise sec­tor and its stake­hold­ers,” Mitchell ex­plained.

Ad­di­tion­al­ly, he said cit­i­zens can ap­ply for over 500 jobs in var­i­ous cat­e­gories adding that places will be avail­able in casi­nos, culi­nary arts, food and bev­er­age man­age­ment, fi­nan­cial man­age­ment, guest ser­vices and guest re­la­tions, ho­tel man­age­ment and en­ter­tain­ment.

Al­so, the Tourism Min­is­ter said those in ma­rine ser­vices can be en­vi­ron­men­tal of­fi­cers, staff cap­tains, chief of­fi­cer safe­ty and or­di­nary sea­man just to name a few.

“This MOU will give many peo­ple a chance at em­ploy­ment as DJs, ac­tiv­i­ty man­agers, pas­try chefs, sports man­ag­er, plumbers, up­hol­ster­ers, bar­tenders and wait­ers.

“The re­cent re­lease and repa­tri­a­tion of sea­far­ers from var­i­ous cruise ships high­light­ed the fact that cruise lines need to en­gage in re-em­ploy­ment ex­er­cis­es,” Mitchell fur­ther ex­plained.

He em­pha­sized that this sea­far­er’s re­cruit­ment dri­ve will al­low cit­i­zens greater ac­cess to jobs on Roy­al Caribbean ves­sels and open up nu­mer­ous op­por­tu­ni­ties that may not have been read­i­ly avail­able be­fore.

Roy­al Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al deep­ens ties with T&T

Af­ter an ab­sence of 24 years, Roy­al Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al has re­cent­ly de­vel­oped a strong re­la­tion­ship with des­ti­na­tion Trinidad and To­ba­go, Mitchell not­ed.

And this year, he said, the Rhap­sody of the Seas will bring ap­prox­i­mate­ly 2,500 vis­i­tors over 24 calls to the des­ti­na­tion start­ing in No­vem­ber. These calls were a di­rect re­sult of Mitchell’s meet­ing with Roy­al Caribbean ex­ec­u­tives at the Flori­da Caribbean Cruise As­so­ci­a­tion in 2019 which fo­cused on the re­turn of the line to the coun­try and oth­er op­por­tu­ni­ties for mu­tu­al­ly ben­e­fi­cial part­ner­ships.

Apart from in­clud­ing T&T on its 2022/2023 itin­er­ary, the cruise line will pro­vide all the nec­es­sary train­ing so that ap­pli­cants are able to per­form ef­fec­tive­ly in their jobs, Mitchell added.

Cit­ing that over the past two years, as with rest of the world, the pan­dem­ic has had a neg­a­tive im­pact on em­ploy­ment in­clud­ing T&T, Mitchell said the re­cruit­ment dri­ve there­fore, is very time­ly as it pro­vides op­por­tu­ni­ties for 2,000 skilled and un­skilled lo­cals to ac­cess gain­ful em­ploy­ment.

Fur­ther, he said this will pro­vide a “trick­le down and in­di­rect im­pact” to the econ­o­my from re­mit­tances and al­so pro­vide hope for those who may have lost jobs or just in need of a new ca­reer ad­ven­ture.

“There are those who were em­ployed in the tourism sec­tor and lost jobs be­cause of the pan­dem­ic. This is an op­por­tu­ni­ty for them to be em­ployed in ar­eas for which they were trained or have ex­pe­ri­ence,” Mitchell added.

He al­so not­ed that this coun­try has a “pool of tal­ent that is un­matched” aris­ing out of its ro­bust ed­u­ca­tion­al of­fer­ings in the ar­eas of tourism and hos­pi­tal­i­ty.

And for this rea­son, the Tourism Min­is­ter said this op­por­tu­ni­ty is one that can ben­e­fit a qual­i­fied tourism and hos­pi­tal­i­ty work­force.

“A Trin­bag­on­ian sea­far­er work­force is recog­nised to rep­re­sent the best of what the Caribbean has to of­fer and the best to a brand like Roy­al Caribbean,” Mitchell added.

Who should ap­ply

Those in­ter­est­ed should ap­ply us­ing the com­pa­ny’s por­tal at https://rclctrac.com where they can get up to date in­for­ma­tion on avail­able po­si­tions.

The Min­istry of Tourism, Cul­ture and the Arts in part­ner­ship with Roy­al Caribbean In­ter­na­tion­al will al­so host three re­cruit­ment fairs be­tween June 7 to 9 to be held at the Hy­att Re­gency Ho­tel, in San Fer­nan­do at the South­ern Acad­e­my for the Per­form­ing Arts and the Shaw Park Cul­tur­al Com­plex, To­ba­go.

Once ap­pli­cants com­plete the on­line ap­pli­ca­tion form and up­load the rel­e­vant doc­u­ments, they will be con­tact­ed for in­ter­views.

Mitchell un­der­scored that there is no ap­pli­ca­tion fee and that the process has no ‘mid­dle-men” and will be done through the com­pa­ny’s por­tal and sub­se­quent­ly at the re­cruit­ment fairs on­ly.

Ba­sic cri­te­ria in­clude an up-to-date Po­lice Cer­tifi­cate of Char­ac­ter, a valid pass­port, abil­i­ty to suc­cess­ful­ly ap­ply for the rel­e­vant Visa and good in­ter­per­son­al skills..

Suc­cess­ful ap­pli­cants will then re­ceive train­ing in safe­ty and aware­ness, skills, com­pe­ten­cy and in the case of ma­rine ap­pli­cants, sea­man book train­ing.

“All re­ports are that the nat­u­ral­ly wel­com­ing dis­po­si­tion of Trinida­di­ans and To­bag­o­ni­ans make them a de­sir­able op­tion for em­ploy­ment in the hos­pi­tal­i­ty in­dus­try.

“Many of our cit­i­zens who are em­ployed with cruise lines of­ten ex­cel and are able to use the train­ing and ex­pe­ri­ence once they re­turn to T&T,” Mitchell said.