Governments urged to review industry’s future manpower needs

GOVERNMENTS across Asia are being urged to review the future manpower needs of the travel and tourism industry, which continues to create millions of jobs for the economy.

The private sector in Asia-Pacific, where tourism growth continues to be on overdrive, believes its job-creation effort has not been recognised – let alone rewarded – by any real intent by governments to facilitate people development for the industry.

A string of tourism leaders at the PATA Annual Summit last Friday called on governments to address fully the industry’s manpower requirements years down the road, not only in terms of sheer numbers but the skills set needed as customers begin to demand experiences from their visits.

Kaye Chon, dean and chair professor, School of Hotel & Tourism Management, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, gave the example that the university’s hotel and tourism management degree and higher diploma programmes could only accept 220 students per year, despite more than 30,000 applications, because the government, which subsidises courses, dictated the allocation, with social studies topping the space.

“Tourism is not high priority. It’s the same, whether in Hong Kong or Singapore. We need to get the private sector, government and academia to sit together. The government must review its support policy,” said Chon.

Lothar Pehl, Starwood Hotels & Resorts Asia-Pacific SVP operations and global initiatives, said governments here needed to give more recognition to this industry. “Switzerland or France were exporting hotel talent abroad because they had good schools that produced the students. There are not enough such hotel schools in Asia,” Pehl said.

Aliana Ho, The Walt Disney Company vice president Asia-Pacific regional sales and travel operations, said Disney’s Shanghai theme park would need 10,000 people when it opens in 2015, but it would be wrong to assume there were enough people even in a country like China.

Said Ho: “We still have to find the right people and develop the talent. It is so important now not just to identify the needs of the industry but to project down the road how many people are needed, how to develop them, etc, especially in a market like China, which is the largest and most robust in the world, where everyone wants to expand.

“Governments need to facilitate this by talking to the private sector and the academia, understand the manpower issue and set up the policies. Otherwise, we will just be fighting for the same pie of labour. We need to build up labour now for the future.”

Meanwhile, the same call was also raised at the Tourism Industry Conference in Singapore last week. Anthony Chan, CEO of Chan Brothers Travel, made an impassioned plea for the government to draw up a “manpower white paper” which would “identify future manpower needs of the industry, redesign curriculums to build the right skills set and put in the resources to develop these people”.

“We have petrochemicals. We are one of the largest rig builders in the world. Why isn’t the same support given to travel and tourism?” Chan said.

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