As Cambodia’s tourism industry continues to rebound post-pandemic, Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA) has designed two online modules to help strengthen the region’s tourism-related SMEs
PATA has developed the new modules in collaboration with Visa to improve tourism businesses’ financial literacy and digital competency. The modules ‘Finance Skills for Tourism SMEs’ and ‘Digital Skills for Tourism SMEs’ are available for free on its Sustainability Resource Centre (SRC) platform.
Upon completing the modules and passing a final quiz, participants will receive a certificate. Currently, the online modules are in English, but by the end of June will be available in Khmer, as well as other regional languages.
PATA Chairman, Peter Semone, said, “The Finance and Digital Skills modules are a great tool for small business owners or managers to develop or increase their skills in financial management and business digitalisation.”
“The modules’ aim is to provide SMEs with the necessary knowledge to successfully manage their business’s finances and increase digital operations to become more efficient and, ultimately, more resilient to challenges and crises.”
Finance Skills for Tourism SMEs
The Finance Skills for Tourism SMEs module covers a range of topics. These include budgeting, saving, record keeping and accounting; funding and loan options for SMEs; payment and banking services; how to manage a business’s cash flow and prepare financial statements; and how to calculate products and services break-even points.
Patsian Low, Vice President of Inclusive Impact and Sustainability for Asia Pacific at Visa, said, “Visa is proud to continue collaborating with PATA by contributing our Practical Business Skills programmes to these new online learning modules.
“This content has been specifically designed to enable SMEs in the region to grow their financial knowledge and learn the critical digital business skills that will help them create sustainable and resilient businesses long into the future.
Digital Skills for Tourism SMEs
The Digital Skills for Tourism SMEs module covers topics such as business digitalisation; digital marketing, including how to build a website, how to promote on social media, email marketing, Google My Business, digital advertising and paid ads; digital payment options; how to set up online payments; and how to stay safe online and prevent identity theft, frauds and other cybercrime.
Pavnesh Kumar, PATA’s Sustainability and Social Responsibility Programme Head, said that post-covid, tourism has become “more digital than ever”.
“The industry increasingly relies on technology, and to stay competitive, tourism SMEs must adopt and make use of digital tools and platforms to reach customers, manage bookings and payments, and maintain operations. But it is also important to know how to stay safe and keep both businesses’ and customers’ data secure,” he added.
The online learning modules will be used as a training tool for its string of capacity-building sessions taking place in July across the region, this includes a training workshop in Siem Reap.
More information will be announced soon. For any enquiries, contact [email protected].
