Workforce development is an important issue for our hoteliers. Ensuring we have a skilled and trained workforce is vital to our hotel industry as is having a pipeline of future talent. HANTX has been working on ways to inspire people and students to look at the myriad of career opportunities that can be found within the hospitality industry.

There are currently over 600 hotels in Texas, but just in the DFW area there are over 1200 hotels – which based on these figures, 20% of the hotel inventory is located within North Texas, and about 26% of the rooms available. There is a tremendous amount of growth and hotel development on the horizon with over 22,000 new hotel rooms in the pipeline for this region and with the redevelopment of the area’s convention center districts, the need for hospitality workers is critical for the success and health of our regional economy.

Working with Area School Districts
HANTX has made a concerted effort to work with our area school districts to encourage, promote, and inspire students to look at the many career paths found within the hospitality industry. Our activities have included:

• Conducting focus groups with middle and high school students in Dallas, Richardson and Frisco ISDs to get their overall perception and views about the workforce as well as to gauge knowledge and interest in the hospitality and lodging industry as a career path.
• Working with individual schools and district programs on engaging with them to provide in-classroom speakers and site visits to hotels.
• Participating in Principal for a Day program
• Having several of our hotels participate with Dallas ISD on setting up site visits for middle school, and high school students both the hospitality/culinary pathway as well as those in the business pathway over the past 5 months.
• Hosting events for CTE Instructors and CTE Administrators to share information on the career progression in the industry and showing the need for these programs in their schools.
• Participating in Career Exploration Fairs within Dallas County and DISD to promote the industry to students.
• Partnering with Texas Hotel & Lodging Association to help sponsor their Dallas Hotel Summer Camp Program and taught the Texas Friendly program to the students.