New Delhi, As the pandemic severely impacts the economy and the employment scenario, the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FICCI) and hospitality major OYO have come together to develop and design an online training and certification course specifically for the hospitality industry.

The course will focus on redesigning the sanitisation protocols and minimising person-to-person contact for a hotel in line with the standard operating procedures announced by the Union Ministry of Tourism, said a joint statement.

"The certification course will help thousands of individual budget, mid-segment, boutique hotels and homestays in India as well as hospitality professionals, to maintain and improve their safety and hygiene standards in line with government and industry benchmarks and best practices. This course is available in Hindi and English," it said.

The course will have a set of nine training modules built to help hotels and hospitality professionals implement key safety guidelines. These modules include hotel, staff, guest, front-office, food and beverage service, housekeeping, guest room cleaning and food production advisories. This will also include an advisory on how to handle suspected Covid-positive guests.

FICCI will enable and support the implementation of IT infrastructure and the online delivery platform for the online certification course. The industry body will also create awareness on the program in the hospitality industry and provide certification on course completion.

OYO has developed and designed the course materials for the program. The partnership is envisaged to create an avenue for hotels and hospitality professionals to meet the challenges of operating a hotel in the present circumstances and also provide relevant solutions to address the same.

Ritesh Agarwal, Founder & Group CEO, OYO Hotels & Homes said, "As a global hospitality chain, we are committed to driving best practices across the hospitality industry, sharing our learnings and co-creating a successful future of hospitality in India and beyond. Our collaboration with FICCI is a step in that direction and we are thankful for their support."

Dilip Chenoy, Secretary General FICCI said: "COVID-19 has forced changes in operating procedures for all kinds of businesses across the globe and the hospitality industry is no exception to it, hence any support to this large set of professionals and hotels will not only help them navigate the uncertainties better but also drive business and revitalise the tourism potential."

He said that this course has been designed to help develop a uniform set of self-regulating guidelines and create supporting mechanisms and frameworks for our industry so that they can benefit from systematic guidelines and sanitation protocols in the post-Covid world.

Prahlad Singh Patel, Union Minister of State for Tourism & Culture, said, "We welcome the initiative of FICCI & OYO to harness technology to develop a certification course that can provide guidance to small and medium hotel enterprises as well as professionals in maintaining high standards of hygiene, sanitation and operational effectiveness."