Illustrative image (Source: VNA)Speaking at a seminar on August 9 in HCM City, Dr Nguyen Anh Tuan, director ofthe Institute for Tourism Development Research, said there was a lack ofhigh-quality staff in the industry.
Vu The Binh, chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association, said that humanresources were a weak point for the industry even before the pandemic.
“Efficient, hard-working, and resourceful human resources are the backbone ofany successful business. It is even more so in the case of the hotel industry.”
Successful hotel operations are sustained by customer-oriented and hard-workingemployees who have adequate competencies, he added.
A large number of hotels and resorts stopped operation during the two-yearpandemic, and coming back could prove challenging, he said.
Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan said working in hotels features long hours,low pay, instability, and low status, making it unattractive as a careerchoice.
As a result, the sector continues to suffer from high staff turnover anddifficulties in recruiting qualified staff.
He said it was important to ensure a better work-life balance for employees andenterprises should have favourable policies to recruit workers.
“Key employee retention is critical to the long-term success of any business,”he said.
A hotel employee works especially hard on those days when the rest of the worldis enjoying vacations again after two years of pandemic.
Dr. Nguyen Quyet Thang, head of HCM City University ofTechnology’s Faculty of Tourism, Restaurant and Hotel Management, said it wasimportant to focus on vocational training in tourism, which Vietnam lacks.
“We should enhance the quality of students who graduate from vocationalinstitutions,” he said. “We should also be more flexible in policies to permitstudents to learn higher skills and change to other fields, especially foreignlanguages.”
For the longer term, Thang expects better job direction for parents andstudents before entering school.
Hotels should work closely with training institutions to recruit long-term orshort-term workers for their operations.
Paul Stoll, CEO of the Imperial Hospitality Group, said to maintain tourismgrowth, Vietnam needed to address both short- and long-term challenges indeveloping qualified human resources.
To improve the quality of human resources in the industry, he recommendedtraining centres move towards training what is closely connected to the demandsof the job and with more focus on practice.
The ultimate goal is to meet tourists’ expectations about amenities andservices according to international standards.
Nguyen Thi Thanh Thuy, general manager at Silk Path Hotel Hanoi, said manyhotels are now rushing to employ staff for their human resources needs.
“In the past, only lucky young people could get a job in good hotels, but nowthey can both study and get paid,” she noted. “This trend is expected tocontinue given the current shortage of human resources in the hotel industry.”
Cao Thi Tuyet Lan, CEO of travel firm Viettours, said to recover theinternational tourist market, Vietnam’s tourism industry needs to address thelack of human resources. After two years of pandemic, high demand has severelyoverloaded the tourism industry’s infrastructure.
Lan said, for example, recently 600 customers in a MICE tour could not check inon time at an international five-star hotel in HCM City. The hotelrepresentative said that the reason for the late check-in is not because therooms are full, but because there are not enough staff to make up the rooms.
Patrick Basset, board of directors of Cityland Education, said the tourismsector needs around 40,000 labourers each year. But around 70% of workers werelaid off or moved to other industries during two years of pandemicrestrictions, creating a huge worker shortage.
Bui Thi Ngoc Hieu, deputy director of the Department of Tourism,said the lack of human resources in tourism, especially the hotel industry, isa global issue, and Vietnam is no exception.
It has been a longstanding issue in HCM City and was only exacerbated by thepandemic, she added.
HCM City is a leader in training people in tourism, and has 24 universities, 20colleges and 19 vocational schools. More than 12,000 people graduate from themevery year, meeting around 60% of demand, according to Hieu.
In addition to a shortage of human resources, a shortage of infrastructure andstrict visa policies have hindered the recovery of the industry. Vietnam couldnot reach the target of five million international arrivals this year due tothese challenges, experts said.
Domestic visitor numbers topped 71.1 million in the first seven months againsta full-year target of 60 million. In the same period, there were only 733,000international visitors, or 8% of pre-pandemic numbers./.
VNA
