Criteria

College Scholarships
The Greater Palm Springs Tourism Foundation encourages all students with a keen interest in advancing their career in tourism or hospitality to apply. The Tourism Foundation works with OneFuture Coachella Valley to oversee its college scholarship application process, including:

• Providing student support services
  • One-on-one counseling
  • Financial aid package review
  • Student Leadership Conference
  • Mid-Year Conference
  • Personal mission statement
  • Workforce preparation/awareness
  • Disbursement of scholarship awards to schools
  • Student progress reports to the Tourism Foundation

• Marketing hospitality scholarship opportunities for the Tourism Foundation scholarship program to high school seniors in the Coachella Valley

• Managing the Tourism Foundation’s online scholarship portal and scholar selection process.
  • Overseeing scholarship application intake
  • Providing student application support and troubleshooting
  • Providing Foundation scholarship reviewer trainings
  • Facilitating application review and scoring
  • Ranking applications and proposing scholar selection
  • Affirming document verification and scholar support

Certified Tourism Ambassador™ (CTA) Scholarships
The Greater Palm Springs Tourism Ambassador Program serves to increase tourism by inspiring and empowering front-line hospitality employees to train as an industry-recognized Certified Tourism Ambassador™ (CTA), thus helping to turn every visitor encounter into a positive experience. The CTA program teaches the importance of tourism, as well as facts about the Greater Palm Springs destination while offering ongoing learning and networking opportunities. Those achieving the CTA designation are required to participate in continuing education activities for annual re-certification. Tourism industry employees and students can apply for CTA scholarships, as can small businesses who wish to help their employees complete the CTA program.

CTA scholarships of $49 will be awarded quarterly on the following schedule.

For more information on the CTA program and scholarships, contact CTA Program Manager Erica Abarca at eabarca@gpscvb.com or 760-969-1322.