The Recovery and Resilience Alliance is working to obtain funding for a hospitality training hub in Eden, with the vision of addressing the skills shortage in the area and supporting local businesses simultaneously.

Seeking to address both current and predicted hospitality sector jobs and skills shortages in Eden and the surrounding area, it's hoped the project will provide access to high-quality, job-ready skills and industry training.

Community development officer Eric Wolske said the program would be targeted towards youth, Indigenous community and potentially the long-term unemployed, with up to 15 people completing the 12-week course at a time.

"The whole idea is to encompass all aspects of hospitality, so we end up with great all-rounders ready for employment," Mr Wolske said.

"We want to reduce the time and costs to local businesses to train people and will be working with the local cafes to develop this program."

Loss of income and reduced trading hours in hospitality have been a consequence of the hard hits to tourism in the Far South region over the last 14 months, but with new businesses and developments planned for Eden in the foreseeable future, an even greater number of skilled hospitality workers will be needed.

"Our aim is to establish a bricks-and-mortar training facility that would provide quality, accessible training opportunities for locals," Mr Wolske said.

It is envisioned the facility would be in a central location in Eden township and would run as a commercial cafe, with all profits invested back into the facility.

"We want to work with local businesses rather than seeing them as competition, opening ideally in the afternoons when other cafes have closed for the day, allowing some of them to come and see how it's all working and perhaps give feedback to our participants," Mr Wolske said.

"We'd like to do things like invite the residents at Bupa for afternoon tea, and find other opportunities for community connection through the process.

"It's really challenging for job seekers in the region. We'd like to be able to create a pool of skilled, job-ready workers who in turn could meet identified local employment needs.

"Add to that a feel-good experience for patrons, knowing they are contributing to a community driven and socially conscious enterprise."

If the grant application was successful, the project will be run as a social enterprise under the auspice of Eden Community Access Centre and hoped to receive some philanthropic support as well as utilising profits raised through the hub operations.

It's hoped the Eden Hospitality Training Hub will be operational by July 2021.

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