MALAYSIA’S GENTING BERHAD PLANS to hire more Filipinos for its hotel and cruise ship businesses in anticipation of an uptick in tourism, as the effects of the global economic crises ebb, Philippine-based officials of the leisure giant said.

In anticipation of this, the group launched last week a school aimed at spotting and training local talents for eventual employment in Genting’s local and international operations, including its seagoing Star Cruises resort fleet.

The school, called the Genting-Star Tourism Academy (GSTA), has the capability to train as many as 450 leisure industry workers in a single three-month program.

“That number can be doubled once we start operating on two shifts,” GSTA assistant vice president Paul Sanpawichu told reporters during a briefing over the weekend. He said demand for Filipino talent within the Genting group remained substantial even amid the economic downturn.

Launched last week, the school is based in Genting’s local office in Pasay City within the 7.8-hectare Newport City project of real estate firm Megaworld Corp., fronting Terminal 3 of the Ninoy Aquino International Airport.

“What we will do here is provide students with the skills necessary to work in Genting’s hotels and cruise ships,” Sanpawichu said.

The school differentiates itself from other locally established hotel and restaurant management courses since it is able to provide immediate employment to qualified students upon graduation, he stressed.

On top of the huge demand for seagoing staff in Genting’s Star Cruises unit, other Genting resorts in the region, including its soon-to-be-opened gaming compex in Singapore, may also source their staffing requirements from the school’s pool, he said.

GSTA officials declined to reveal the amount of investments the group infused into the school, noting that “investments continue to be made,” and assuring that the Genting group is “committed to a long-term relationship” with the Philippines.

The group’s commitment is, in part, made necessary by its large staffing needs for its resort fleet, as well as that of its other cruise liner subsidiary, Norwegian Cruise Line (NCL).

According to Sanpawichu, about 1,000 service personnel man each of Star Cruises’ four oceangoing resorts, with about 50 percent of them being Filipino nationals.

He noted that the firm had an average turnover rate of 40 percent every four years which, combined with the needs of NCL and Genting’s various hotels, could translate to a big employment opportunity for Filipino workers in the service sector.

GSTA is the brainchild of Genting’s Star Cruises unit and Megaworld’s parent firm, Alliance Global Group Inc., which is one of the country’s largest corporations with interests in the food and beverage business, quick-service restaurants and real estate development.