At a VIP dinner during the ITB in Berlin, the International Hotel & Restaurant Association (IH&RA) helped underline the global hospitality industry's support and solidarity for tsunami-affected destinations. The IH&RA board of directors and members of its Chains Council also used the occasion to underscore one of its newest initiatives, the International Worker Exchange Program, designed to tackle the hotel and restaurant industry's drastic labor shortage in developed countries and the overabundance of labor in developing countries, while providing an opportunity for cross-cultural exposure and training.

The evening was sponsored by BBC World and welcomed special guest Hiran Cooray, vice president of the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka and managing director of Jetwing Hotels Ltd., as well as Peter de Jong, CEO of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA). Also present that evening was Akhtar Khan, main presenter of the BBC World Program Fast Track, who interviewed Hiran Cooray and gave him the opportunity to share his positive message about Sri Lanka across the BBC worldwide network: Sri Lanka is open for business and ready to welcome visitors.

With the tsunami disaster, the International Worker Exchange Program has become the IH&RA priority program as hotel and restaurant workers in tsunami-stricken areas found themselves instantly unemployed because of destroyed or damaged properties. As a result, the International Worker Exchange Program will kick off in 2005 with a pilot project to assist some 25,000 workers in affected regions to travel to developed countries to work. IH&RA is in discussions with other international organizations and institutions to ensure that there is both financial and administrative support for the program in order to overcome obstacles in obtaining visas, training and transportation. The program will serve the industry in three major areas: it will provide income for the employee and his or her family back home; he or she will be exposed to a new culture and be trained in a new way; and it will permit the employers to benefit both in high demand seasons and in low labor supply areas.

The IH&RA is the only global business organization representing the hospitality industry. Its members are national hotel and restaurant associations throughout the world, and international and national hotel and restaurant chains representing some 50 brands. Officially recognized by the United Nations, IH&RA monitors and lobbies all international agencies on behalf of this industry, which comprises 300,000 hotels and 8 million restaurants, employs 60 million people and contributes US$950 billion annually to the global economy.