The Caribbean Tourism Organisation (CTO) has reached agreement with the Canada-based e-learning courseware development company, Velsoft, to further advance its virtual training and development programme.

As part of the agreement, Velsoft will host the Caribbean Tourism Institute, an online campus developed by the Canadian firm.

The new portal is an open online educational, training and development learning centre designed to provide affordable access to training opportunities for everyone who works, or aspires to work, in the Caribbean tourism and hospitality sector.

"Velsoft has been working closely with us to help us realise one of our key human resources development objectives of increasing the access of Caribbean nationals to high quality training and educational opportunities," said Neil Walters, CTO acting secretary general.

"This partnership has allowed us to develop and offer this virtual training hub and will continue to help us in our mission to develop and design relevant e-learning content, which will benefit our tourism and hospitality sector."

From its inception, the CTO has been a strong proponent of human resources development in the tourism industry and has as one of its strategic objectives, to assist its member countries in developing and strengthening their human capital to better enable them to offer high levels of professional service.

The launch of the online training platform and courses is an important step in achieving this objective and to support ongoing training and build regional and institutional capacity.