MORE than 50 hospitality workers — who participated in the fourth staging of the Tourism Linkages Network’s DJ Capacity Enhancement Training Programme — recently received their Certificates of Participation at a virtual ceremony held on August 12 at the Jamaica Pegasus hotel in Kingston.

Music producer Delano “DJ Delano” Thomas of Renaissance was one of the tutors in the programme. He explained the objective of the programme.

“The project aims to enhance the hard and soft skills of DJs who compliment the entertainment offerings to guests within the hotel environment. Our DJs play an important role as musical ambassadors for Jamaica and through their presentations on property (hotels, attractions and events), they provide guests with a wholesome immerse in to what Jamaica has to offer in relation to musical entertainment — whether as part of daytime or night life entertainment,” he told the Jamaica Observer’s Splash.

According to the producer, the DJ Academy Jamaica training programme is an initiative of the Tourism Linkages Network and began in 2017.

“The programme was offered as part of a larger Ministry of Tourism strategy which offered tourism workers an opportunity to enhance their skills and qualifications at this time. Given that the DJ programme is designed for persons currently employed in the tourism industry —this was a natural fit,” he continued.

Thomas said for the first time the sessions were delivered online, courtesy of the Jamaica Centre of Tourism Learning Management System, which started in May and this month.

“This allowed our programme to be more flexible. It provided plenty of room to bring in special guests to speak to our DJs. This is something we would not have been able to achieve with an in-person setting as timing was always an issue. Input and content delivery from peers and veterans in the industry allowed for diversity in the content and ideas. This isn’t just a training, we consider our training programme as a think tank which was made thanks to guest DJs such as Jazzy T, Sean Wedderburn, Bambino, DJ Denvo, Walshy Fire, and our guests from SERATO Matt and DJ Op. It was greatly beneficial to the DJs as they were able to join in from wherever they were, and it was not limited to DJs who were on the north coast. This was an excessively big initiative. Ultimately made possible through the creative foundation provided by TLN Tourism Linkages Sport and Entertainment Network Chairman Kamal Bankay, and our project manager at the Tourism Enhancement Fund (TEF) Simone Harris,” he said.

“My colleague Kellany Cadogan-Nolan contributed some very important ideas, which led to our creating modules that covered topics such as soft skills (emotional intelligence), how to conduct oneself in a tourist environment, hard skills (software development and technical skills),” he continued.