The event, taking place at Crowne Plaza City Centre, will offer career opportunities, apprenticeships and work placements for young job seekers in Birmingham.
According to the latest data from May 2015, Birmingham has the highest youth unemployment rate - 9.1% - amongst UK core cities. This is significantly above the UK average of 6.2%.
However, the hospitality and tourism industry can play a huge part as over 40% of staff in the industry is under the age of 30, compared to an average of 19% across UK plc.
The BHA led Big Hospitality Conversation is a nationwide campaign that has brought together more than 2,000 businesses to create over 42,000 new career opportunities for young people across the country.
The campaign is supported by JobCentrePlus, DWP, the National Apprenticeship Service, Springboard and Believe in Young People and aims to create 60,000 new career starts for young job seekers by 2016.
According to the research by the BHA and Oxford Economics, 8.4% of working people in Birmingham are part of the hospitality and tourism industry and this is expected to rise significantly over the next five years.
Ufi Ibrahim, CEO of the BHA, said: “The hospitality and tourism industry continues to outperform others industries, and accounts for 17 per cent of all new jobs in the UK since 2010. We expect this trend to continue especially in Birmingham, where business and leisure travel, national and international conferences and events, and broader hospitality activity are all forecast to continue to grow.
“For young people living here in Birmingham, a career in hospitality and tourism offers an opportunity to be part of a dynamic, growing and competitive sector with great prospects for growth. The breadth of roles and the training available means that new entrants can succeed very quickly, climbing the career ladder towards even greater opportunities in the industry.”
Anne Pierce, CEO of Springboard said: “Springboard is proud to be one of the founder partners of the Big Hospitality Conversation. It is recognised that work experience plays key part in influencing a person’s career choice and this is why we are taking a lead role in this initiative through Springboard’s quality work experience programme, INSPIRE, which has been developed to provide job seekers with valuable work experience.”