Vocational training in tourism sector vital

Speech delivered by the President of the Hotels Association of Sri Lanka Anura Lokuhetty at the signing of the MoU between The Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka and the Vocational Training Authority

Tourism, the largest civil industry in the world which generated more than one trillion USD’s is second only to the oil industry in terms of revenue. Tourism revenue in the world is 10 percent of the GNP.

When considering the employment opportunities in the world, tourism sector is by far the largest employment provider.

As per the UNWTO statistics employment in the tourism industry is around three hundred million, which means 7 percent of the total employees in the world. When you consider the tourism arrivals to our region, last year it shows a growth of 13.5 percent from 180 million to 204 million.

“Considering the strength and potential of our beautiful country and the socio-economic significance of Tourism, We are glad that President Mahinda Rajapaksa’s manifesto Mihinda Chintanaya, has envisioned the future Sri Lanka as a “dynamic global hub”.

The economic prospects for the nation’s post-conflict development hinge primarily on a few “Thrust” industries. Among them, tourism has the potential to create the highest impact all round.

Taking all these matters in to consideration, the President, has set a target of achieving 2.5 million tourists by 2016. This is definitely an achievable task. When we consider last year’s arrivals of 654,000 tourists you may feel it is a very ambitious target.

I would like to re-emphasise the fact that this is not a big task provided we concentrate and focus on achieving the target and get ourselves aligned with all the requirements for this achievement.

I would like to give a few examples in the region for us to realise how other countries have fared in the last year in terms of tourist arrivals to their countries.

Malaysia 24 million, Thailand 16 million, Singapore 11.3 million, Vietnam 5 million, Cambodia 2.5 million and our immediate neighbouring country, Maldives achieved almost 800,000 tourists.

If we look at 1994 figures of those countries they have actually improved more than 400 to 500 percent where as we have improved only by about 60 percent. One reason for this is the unfavourable situation which prevailed in the country for development of tourism. We are happy to note that the outlook for the industry has now completely turned around after nearly three decades of operating in extremely challenging circumstances amidst a military conflict.

As per the Presidential target of expected 2.5 million arrivals in 2016 there will be employment opportunities for at least 500,000 persons.

When we consider the current direct and indirect employment, this is about 150,000. This clearly indicates that there will be additional jobs created for at least 350,000 by 2016.

However, I must also emphasise the fact that even when we consider the current employment of 150,000 most of them were trained by the hotels in association with National Apprenticeship Board and SLITHM.

Majority of the people in the industry were trained by the hotels after recruiting them as trainees. So, today we are very glad and thankful to

VTA Chairman Dammika Hewapathirana and particularly Paneetha Rathnayake for having identified the necessity of taking timely action to train the required number of staff in association with The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka.

Tourism industry requires more contact between the employees and the guests than any other industry. Tourism requires much more practical than theoretical training to ensure that customers are satisfied with the services. As Sri Lankans and Asians are well-known in the world for being hospitable people, tourists who visit the Asian region naturally expect a higher standard of services than from a hotel in Europe. Therefore, it is absolutely necessary for us to take adequate measures to be ready to received 2.5 million tourists by year 2016.

Considering the competitive nature of today’s tourism industry, quality training together with professionalism of staff will have a major impact on the competitiveness of the destination. One major error I see in the mind of some people in the industry is being confused over “hospitality” with “service professionalism”. While certainly, without a doubt, a warm smile is always welcome, the smile, itself, is not adequate in today’s competitive climate.

Travellers expect high quality and efficient service standards, which no amount of “hospitality” alone can substitute for. Therefore, hospitality today has to be tempered and augmented with good professionalism as well.

In the Sri Lankan context, training and development of the staff in the tourism industry is a complex task as it is not only job skills that need to be developed and inculcated, but professionalism and to do something to perfection has to be “taught”.

The Sri Lankan way of feeling bad to say “Sorry” and to accept “Anything as good enough”, needs to be adequately addressed prior to any technical training to the staff.

In developed countries, basic on the job skills training is the only input required for the staff, as in those country’s culture itself is formulated around perfection.

However, there is a large cultural division in what is comprehended as service quality in an affluent western culture, compared with what the average Sri Lankan suburban and village population thinks.

This means, that we have to often provide on-the job skills training in addition to other fundamental training in other aspects. In a positive note, our people are extremely hospitable than most others which is an extremely positive advantage in comparison to most other tourist destinations.

The burden in Human Resource field in the tourism industry today is the “mediocre is acceptable mentality”. Very often staff performs less than perfectly, accepting lower service levels and do not strive to deliver the best. This could be the result of the bad period we have undergone for almost three decades and as a result we have not been able to attract suitable staff for the hotel industry.

The lack of enthusiasm of youth joining the industry has resulted in our service standards in hotels deteriorating beyond what we had in the past in terms of service standards. Due to this factor and various other factors we were attracting lower standards of tourists to Sri Lanka.

Today we are not a cheap destination anymore, when you compare the rates demanded by the hoteliers with the other destinations in the region.

Therefore, it has become absolutely necessary for a high level of professionalism to be brought into the industry by attracting suitable staff and training them properly to deliver the high standard of service expected by the tourist, who pays a much higher rate than before.

Another factor that needs to be considered is to bring more professionalism to the industry to overcome the cultural disadvantage on the quality ethic in our day-to-day work. Getting it right the first time is often not considered important, and re-work is often the norm.

Therefore, we have to bring in a new culture to the tourism industry by having more training programmes, not only in terms of technical aspects but considering all aspects.

We have to find methods to drive in the importance of perfection in to the minds of hotel employees.

In this endeavour, I am sure, as great partnerships can achieve great things, the “Vocational Training Authority together with the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka” has a major role to play to find and suitably trained staff to meet up with the future demands of tourism industry in Sri Lanka.

I believe it is a good time for the policymakers in education, to give serious consideration to align the education system in this country, to cater to the development of resources and identified industries that could really make a difference in developing the country’s economy. In this direction, it is required to change the perception of the society which considers only those employed in a few identified professions as professionals.

We all know that an important industry to develop Sri Lanka’s economy in a sustainable manner is the tourism industry. In terms of the multiplier effect tourism has it has a major impact on the economy more than any other industry in Sri Lanka. When we look at middle-eastern countries like Dubai, having realised the diminishing nature of their resources such as Oil, they have created manmade wonders to attract tourists as they know very well that there is no other industry that could generate as many job opportunities and economic development.

When you look at our major foreign exchange earner “foreign employment” this has created so many social problems. The youth and the available workforce has not been utilised adequately for the development of resources of Sri Lanka.

Only way to create such large numbers of employment opportunities in this country would be through tourism and therefore President’s target of reaching 4 million tourists by 2020, and thereby creating one million jobs would be the ideal solution to our country at this moment of time. If you generate these one million jobs and consider the dependence on the Million people, around 20 percent of the Sri Lanka’s population will be dependent on tourism.

This will further avoid our beloved brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers, sons and daughters from going abroad for unskilled jobs, thereby creating major social problems due to break up of families.

Other major industries which are instrumental in earning the much required foreign revenue, would not be as sustainable as development of tourism in Sri Lanka, particularly due to the fact that in most of these industries 90 percent of the raw materials are imported and the finished goods are exported.

Considering all this, we, the professionals in the industry, could be happy that we are engaged in one of the most suitable industry for economic development of Sri Lanka.

Having said this, I think it is our total responsibility, as industry professionals, to ensure support to the initiatives taken by the Vocational Training Authority by having identified tourism industry as the biggest employer in Sri Lanka in time to come.

I wish and expect all industry professionals to take serious note of the necessity of improving the human resource factor in the hotel industry by conducting more and more on the job training and making them aware of the competition that is faced by the industry.

In order to facilitate this requirement, we on our part, the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka has been incorporated as a Company, named “The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka”.

Now the association has a full time CEO and we are in a position to assist the industry in their needs by co-ordinating existing resources and activities within the sector to meet current and future skills needs.

I consider this as a giant step taken by the VTA at a time when 2.5 million tourists are expected to Sri Lanka in 2016.

Furthermore as per the Presidential target of receiving four million tourists in 2020, there will be employment opportunities for at least one Million people.