BRIDGETOWN, Barbados – Customer-driven tourism industry leaders in the Caribbean region now have an additional tool to help improve the quality of service that they deliver. The Caribbean Tourism Organization (CTO) Human Resources Division has produced a handbook entitled Competing With The Best – Good Human Resource Practices in Caribbean Tourism aimed at assisting the region improve the quality of its tourism product. “This user-friendly handbook is a resource tool which profiles successful human resources practices that are home grown and which can be adapted and used by human resource practitioners and industry leaders across the region,” said Bonita Morgan, CTO’s director of human resources. Competing With The Best – Good Human Resource Practices in Caribbean Tourism provides helpful tips and resources on how to find, train, manage and retain good employees. It examines recruitment, screening and hiring; employee orientation, training and professional development; building a performance culture; management and leadership styles; reward, recognition and benefits; job mobility and career development and performance planning and employee evaluation. This handbook is one of the outputs from a technical assistance programme to the CTO from the Special Advisory Services Division of the Commonwealth Secretariat and is the first in a series of good practices handbooks which the regional tourism body will produce annually. The CTO Human Resources Division has also produced two manuals designed to assist persons involved in the Caribbean Tourism Internship Exchange System (TIES). The Guide Book for Interns and the Guide Book for Mentors were developed and printed with funds from the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA)/Caribbean Regional HRD programme for Economic Competitiveness (CPEC), and is a component of the Caribbean Tourism Learning System (CTLS) project. Both guides contain a wealth of information about the internship programme, including the overall goals and objectives of TIES; the benefits of an internship; types of internship and internship selection criteria. The guide for interns also has information on how best to benefit from an internship, useful intern skills and the duties and tasks assigned to an intern as part of TIES. TIES has been set up to organise and rationalise the sourcing and awarding of tourism and hospitality internship opportunities for students, industry workers and educators in the Caribbean region. TIES is funded by the 8th European Development Fund (EDF) Caribbean Regional Tourism Sector Programme, financed by the European Union. It is coordinated by the School of Hotel Management from Pontificia Universidad Católica Madre y Maestra (PUCMM) in the Dominican Republic. Contact: Johnson JohnRose, CTO Tel: (246) 427-5242 E-mail: jjohnrose@caribtourism.com