HIGH prices and low manpower supply remain the bugbears for Singapore’s tourism industry, even as the Singapore Tourism Board (STB) revealed more initiatives to strengthen the city as a quality destination.
At the Tourism Industry Conference this morning, STB’s CEO, Lionel Yeo, said the demand drivers for Singapore were “healthy” (on the back of global interest to travel to Asia and the rise of the Asian middle class). He admitted the city was not a low-cost destination, but visitors would get real value and STB would be working even closer with industry partners to bolster this value.
Among new initiatives: An attractions experience development programme, details in 2Q14, aimed at making Singapore’s tourism attractions experts at providing experiences; a knowledge bank full of best practices on how hotels make do with less manpower, to be available on STB’s corporate website soon; a study looking at improvement opportunities for hotel operations, to be completed by 3Q14; and a hotel industry expert panel set up to chart a hotel manpower roadmap.
There was an “aspiration mismatch” between career-seekers and jobs in the tourism industry, Yeo acknowledged. Less than 30 per cent of jobs in the industry, going by the hotel sector sample, are PMET jobs (Professionals, Managers, Executives and Technicians), yet, more than 60 per cent of job-seekers by 2020 would want PMET jobs, he said.
A manpower study in conjunction with the National Association of Travel Agents Singapore would also be completed by 3Q14, while STB is reviewing the training needs of tour guides, working with relevant organisations to raise the quality of guiding services.
But industry members interviewed by TTG Asia e-Daily said bugbears such as high pricing and manpower shortage would not likely disappear.
Gillian Guy, director Singapore/Malaysia of Destination Asia, said while new attractions and customer-centric promotions would grab clients’ attention, winning them over was another thing.
“The whispers are Singapore is getting even more expensive and no matter how excellent the value is in return, there is at the end of the day a limit to what people would spend. These days, as you know, companies have become careful about their corporate meeting and MICE spend.”
Michael Ma, the entrepreneur behind IndoChine House, said coming up with exciting dining or entertainment concepts to enhance the tourism product was not an issue at all – manpower was, is and will be.
Said Ma: “It’s tough to expand the business. We have a new site at Tanjong Katong. We couldn’t do anything there. We didn’t have enough manpower. We own the building but I’ve never opened it. We don’t even have manpower now to cover (our existing operations) so how could you expand?”
“We’ve been talking about this for a long time. I’ve a restaurant in Germany and the staff there go through three years of training – it’s a profession and the pay is high…Singaporeans really don’t want to do this job, really they don’t. You advertise (heavily) and get 500 applicants. I would say 50 would be from Singaporeans. May be 25 would turn up for the interview and at least 60 per cent want to be managers straightaway.”
– Read the Analysis, What it means to support quality tourism, in TTG Asia soon
