EASB (East Asia Institute of Management), a fully-owned subsidiary of the EASB Education Group and NATAS (National Association of Travel Agents Singapore) jointly announced a strategic partnership under which EASB will acquire the major shareholding in TMIS (Tourism Management Institute of Singapore), NATAS’ training arm. TMIS will be relocated to the EASB Campus on 1 November 2017.

A signing ceremony took place on the 17th of October 2017 at 10 am at the EASB Campus at 9 Ah Hood Road. Dr. Andrew Chua, principal and executive chairman of EASB and Mr Steven Ler, acting president of NATAS, were both on hand to formalise the agreement.

Announcing the rationale behind the acquisition, Dr. Andrew Chua noted that this partnership is both timely and synergistic by bringing together a premier PEI (Private Education Institution) and an industry association committed to upgrading the industry-relevant skills and capabilities of tourism and travel-related sector manpower.

Dr. Chua further commented, “Like all sectors in the economy, the tourism and travel-related sector is being profoundly impacted by the changes and technological developments in the global economy. We need to skill and re-skill personnel with the industry-relevant competences, i.e. empower them with future skills for the future jobs which the transformations of their industry will create.

We will leverage on EASB’s long experience and strong expertise to continue to deliver industry-relevant education and training, especially for the Hospitality & Tourism sector.  And our newly launched LMS (Learning Management System) will see the adoption of new blended learning pedagogy to ensure more efficient and effective skills mastery and life-long learning. We want to ensure that through the re-structured TMIS, our travel and tourism courses, programmes and workshops will empower industry employees to stay skills-relevant, innovative and productive throughout their working life.”