TRAINING AND EDUCATION IN TOURISM AND EXPERIENCES OF THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY

TRAINING AND EDUCATION IN TOURISM

AND

EXPERIENCES OF THE TRAVEL INDUSTRY

PHẠM HÀ, CEO OF LUXURY TRAVEL LTD.

A FACE FEATURED IN FORBES VIETNAM MAGAZINE

WWW.LUXURYTRAVELS.ASIA

1. The whole picture - a first-hand insight

2. My executive experiences as DMC in human resource development

3. The expectations of the travel industry

4. Reasons, conclusion, some suggestions for both public and private sectors

TRAINING AND EDUCATION IN TOURISM

DO NOT MEET EXPECTATIONS OF THE HOSPITALITY AND TOURISM INDUSTRY

I work and talk with my colleagues, our suppliers,

transportations, cruises, hotels, they both face the difficulties in the human resource development.

They have both train again their staff with in house training

courses, on the job training, training for the trainers programs.

A Bunch of Graduates but We Still Lack of Qualified Tourism

Graduates seriously.

These included a lack of up-to-date facilities

and equipment, limited practical skills of teachers and poor collaboration between training institutions and the industry.

Labor market need competent workers but our travel

industry is currently facing which do not have enough competencies.

Hard to find top levels : seniors, managers,…

A shortage of qualified tourism workers are slowly pulling Vietnam’s tourism sector down.

NOMINATED BY WORLD TRAVEL AWARDS 2014,

VIETNAM’S LEADING TOUR OPERATOR

THE EXPERIENCES FROM A VIETNAMESE INDUSTRY

PRACTITIONER IN THE TRAVEL SECTOR

Our experiences as local Tour Operator, Luxury Travel is currently facing a bunch of graduates which have no competency.

Students from vocational training and tourism schools are not qualified to work after graduating, with many having only a basic knowledge of tourism and lack of English skills.

Graduates from tourism schools or tourism faculties, they have the knowledge, some skills but not they are not good at English.

Graduates from English departments, good at English and lack of tourism knowledge and vocational skills.

We often pick the later and give them on –the-job training courses and practical works in our offices.

Four elements –Knowledge, Occupational Skills and Attitude,

foreign language skill and reasonable allocation of labor among areas – would be crucial to meet the critical demands of the tourism industry,”

Our company is currently facing a bunch of graduates which have none of the four elements.

Our company has to spend at least 3-6 months conducting on-the-job training courses for new staff who is good at English.

We currently hire foreigners in some positions such as GM, marketing

manager. This diverse and cultured group of professionals ensures our clients the best possible experience in the region

We spend the equivalent amount of time to inspect destinations in order to help them to become truly legitimate luxury travel advisors and they are confident to sell our luxury tourism products and provide “wow” services to the most discriminating travellers.

We provide in house training courses for our staff who become truly TRAVEL EXPERTS in the industry. We set up our own PROCESS.

In our programs, we provide courses and practices and they will get a certificate after completion of our courses.

We coach them with Right ATTITUDE in the right Lux company, SOFT SKILLS in

order to provide GOOD SERVICES.

GOOD SERVICES= ATTITUDE + ART OF SERVING + PROCESS.

100% SATISFACTION AND 60 % REPEATING BUSINESS WITH LUXURY TRAVEL LTD.

It is a waste of time and money for a private company and the country.

Vietnam’s tourism sector will be at risk of lagging far behind other regional countries’ in ASEAN and find it difficult to maintain a high growth rate if breakthrough measures are not taken to generate enough qualified personnel.

THE EXPECTATIONS OF TRAVEL INDUSTRY

From a point of view of a private company, we do not receive ENOUGH supports from VNAT.

Private sectors are luck of funds, experiences and difficulties to recruit management and staff in compare with large companies. Hard to hire and keep good people.

When licensing your business with authorities, setting up our operations, such as 500 millions VND for outbound and 250millions for inbound licences. Private and small travel enterprises need money to start up.

So far no competency standards in workplace, so it is hard to work with local and international teams.

The concept of competency

– the knowledge, skills, attitude (KSA) that individuals must

have, or must acquire, to perform effectively at work.

COMPETENT

Competency covers all aspects of workplace performance and involves

Performing individual tasks

Managing a range of different tasks

Responding to contingencies or breakdowns

Dealing with the responsibilities of the workplace

Working with others/Team work

Travel workers lack of – knowledge, skill (s), attitude and foreign languages skills.

Especially soft skills such as, customer services,

presentation, time management, communications, interpersonal, problem solving and skills, persuasion, public speaking, understanding customers….

Lack of attitude, process and competency standards

Competency covers all aspects of workplace performance and involves

Performing individual tasks

Managing a range of different tasks

Responding to contingencies or breakdowns

Dealing with the responsibilities of the workplace

Working with others.

CONCLUSION, SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR BOTH PUBLIC AND PRIVATE SECTORS

Reasons for problems and for the lack of competencies, the weaknesses of the tourism training and education system, we have no competency standards. => Need competency standards

Students learn theory, luck of practices and real experiences at work. => More outdoor activities, real practices at travel firms.

Need provide English skills standards for graduates, CEF- Common European Framework, A1-C2. TOEIC (Test of English for International Communication)

No corporation between private and public sectors,

training institutions and travel firms. => Up-to-date facilities and equipment, trends, practical skills of

teachers and strictly collaboration between training institutions and the industry

Training and educations MUST BE competence-based training.

Train what the travel enterprises need.

Competence-based training (CBT) is to focus

on what a worker can do or is required to do at work.

CBT approach is recognized worldwide .

Especially applicable to tourism where people make

difference and “attitude” is an extremely vital element of all customer-contact and services

situations.

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE PUBLIC SECTOR

Government should put tourism industry on priority, policies and infrastructures to develop tourism and generate jobs.

To build tourism and hotelier university, actually there are no university

More practices, 50 % at school and 50% at travel enterprises. Soft Skills needed in education and training.

To provide competence-based training and competency standards.

The public sector allow the private sectors in training such as tour guide, sales, and marketing, soft skills

Effective Integration to MRA-TP of Asean in 2015.

SOME SUGGESTIONS FOR THE PRIVATE SECTOR

travel ccompanies should invest in human resource development, is the most powerful,

profitable and ensure clients satisfaction and

sustainable development and most ROI.

Invest in yourself

Competencies are gained in many ways including Training and development programs

Formal education

Life Experience

Apprenticeships

On-the-job experience

Self-help programs

GOOD SERVICES = ATTITUDE + ART OF SERVING + PROCESS.