Monday marked a new era for the young professionals of Costa Rica.  It was the first day classes were in session at the Hotel del Sur in the Southern region.  In a joint effort by National Training Institute (INA) and the Center for Cooperative Studies and Training, a nonprofit group that focuses on professional training 20 young people are getting the opportunity to be trained to work in a hotel by living in one. 

Hotel del Sur is preparing early for the Southern regions boom in tourism.  With a new airport planned to go in and more people discovering the region each year, the hotel wants to be ready for the boom.  Unlike other tourist regions, the Southern one hopes to have all of the jobs filled by people from within the region.  Recent reports from the Guanacaste career fair show that more people who work in that area are not from the area. 

Classes in the program include English, management, business administration, and technology.  The students will live in the hotel for one year, taking classes all day 5 days a week to start and then slowly progress to practical application and studying.  By practical application, the students will take what they have learned in the classroom and actually do it at the hotel.  The hotel has put over $100,000 into the program building dormitories, a computer center, and classroom for the students. 

This is the first of 6 such schools for Costa Rica.  The goal of the program is to give young people the opportunity to become young professionals and be able to find their part in the dominating tourist industry here.  The program models after ones in Brazil and Spain.  

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Filed under: Costa Rica News on September 14th, 2007