About 100 more residents will be employed at the Grand Cayman Marriott Beach Resort in time for the upcoming winter tourist season following a one-day career fair last Friday.

Hundreds of jobseekers and school students attended the fair, which was officially opened by Minister of Tourism, Hon Charles Clifford, and General Manager of the local Marriott, Chris Sariego.

Melinda Montemayor, the resort's Human Resources Manager, told Cayman Net News that the thinking behind the career fair is twofold.

Ms Montemayor explained that there is a need to recruit personnel to fill about 90 vacancies and to educate students on the interesting careers in the hospitality industry.

"Since the hotel had been purchased we've somewhere in the region of 90 new positions to fill in the upcoming high season, so obviously we need to recruit a lot of people," she said.

The career fair also provided an avenue for knowledge and understanding of the workings of the industry to close to 60 students who attended from the John Gray High, the Lighthouse and the Cayman Prep and High School.

Ms Montemayor said they learned about some of the areas of interest in the hospitality industry, job opportunities and how they could contribute to the growth development of the sector.

The available jobs are new positions with some being seasonal, full time or part time positions.

The Human Resources Manager said that food and beverage, housekeeping and engineering are the areas most desperately in need of employees.

Ms Montemayor said that housekeeping and engineering were very attractive to residents in the past but they are now a bit challenging to fill.

"Traditionally, it has always been an area that the local community has filled but for some reason we haven't done very well in that area so we're trying to build upon that," she said.

"That's an area we desperately need people, I can't stress how important it is," she said in reference to the Engineering Department of the resort.

Jobs in that department are Assistant Chief Engineers along with personnel in building maintenance and repairs, painting, technicians, plumbers, landscapers and others.

Food and beverage, however, is an area that has not been able to attract large numbers of residents, she said.

According to Ms Montemayor, Caymanians and other residents are badly needed in these areas to provide both the local and Caymanian experience to the guests.

"We're trying to create for our guests that local experience, that Grand Cayman Marriott experience, what better way to do it than to have a lot of our locals engulfed in food and beverage," she said.

She stated the type of candidate that Marriott Beach Resort was interested in hiring in the coming days.

"If you're the best candidate for the job then you're the one we're going to hire," she said.

"If you're someone who demonstrates ambition, that warm friendly smile but maybe you don't have any hospitality experience then you need to be on our team because that's what we're going to grow and we're going to nurture that."

General Manager Chris Sariego, several senior and middle managers and various staff members of Grand Cayman Marriott Beach Resort were on hand to assist the attendees with their enquiries and application process.

Currently, the local Marriott Resort on the Seven Mile Beach in Grand Cayman has about 185 employees.