ASEAN agrees deal on bloc's tourism workers HA NOI (VNS)- Ways to effectively implement an agreement on tourism workers across member states of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) were discussed at a seminar on Tuesday. The ASEAN Mutual Recognition Agreement (MRA) on Tourism Professionals will come into effect in 2015, and is expected to facilitate the free movement and employment of qualified and certified personnel between the bloc's member states. It is also expected to help Viet Nam attract skilled workers to fill the shortage of staff in the local tourism sector and enable Vietnamese workers in the sector to work in other ASEAN countries. Participants at the seminar discussed a handbook that guides implementation of the agreement. The handbook, which was developed with input from the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism and the EU-funded Environmentally and Socially Responsible Tourism Capacity Development Programme, was adopted by ASEAN tourism ministers at their meeting in Laos in mid-January and has been made available to all member nations. A series of User Guides for Tourism Professionals, Employers and Training Organisations have also been prepared and put online to answer questions about how the agreement on tourism professionals works, as well as the requirements and implications for tourism employees and employers. According to ESRT, as each ASEAN nation has its own standards, certification and regulations for recognising the competency of workers in the tourism sector, there is a need for agreement on what constitutes equivalent competency to work in tourism by a worker, for example from Viet Nam, who is seeking a position in Malaysia. For a foreign tourism professional to be recognised by other ASEAN member states and to be eligible to work in a host country, they will need to have a valid tourism competency certificate in a specific tourism job title as specified in the Common ASEAN Tourism Curriculum, issued by the Tourism Professional Certification Board in an ASEAN member state. There are 32 job titles covered under this MRA, ranging from housekeeping, front office, food and beverages services, and food production in the hotel sector, to travel agents and tour operators in the travel sector. - VNS