The Philippine Hotel Owners Association (PHOA) is developing a manpower roadmap to identify the workforce needs of the expanding hospitality sector and address potential labour shortages caused by the migration of employees and graduates abroad.
The initiative – the first of its kind for the industry – aims “to ensure that hotels have qualified manpower to recruit from”, said PHOA executive director Benito Bengzon Jr at the media launch of Philippine Hotel Connect 2025. The event, the country’s largest gathering of hotel owners, investors and developers, will take place on July 24 and 25.
According to PHOA’s Philippine Accommodation Pipeline Report 2024, more than 55,000 direct jobs will be required to support 158 accommodation projects that are either in the pipeline or under development over the next few years.
“We heard about the problems with job mismatch, the continuing problems about our tourism and hospitality students getting jobs on cruise ships, and about the difficulty of getting baristas, front office desk clerks, etc,” Bengzon said.
He stressed that the industry’s human capital development plan must be forward-looking. “The human capital development plan for the industry is aspirational. The narrative has to change. Many Filipinos will still want to continue to aspire for overseas jobs and therefore we cannot be using the competition posed by overseas employment as the perpetual reason for not having enough people to work here.
“Five years from now, we will not be talking about job mismatch because if that’s still the kind of conversation we will have in five to ten years, we failed.”
Bengzon added that the roadmap “is going to be a game changer because once you have the document, you will be able to see a clearer picture of the future.
“It will be good not only for hotel owners but also for current workers, the students, the parents,” he shared.
