Tourism sector faces challenges in AEC

Experts voiced this concern at a seminar on the industry held by theBritish Council, Human Resources Development Center and VietnamInstitute of Management in HCMC last week.

Nguyen Van Luu, manager of a project to strengthen human resources forthe local tourism sector funded by Luxembourg, said the hospitalityindustry has 700,000 direct employees and over 1.5 million indirectworkers. Many of them lack skills and foreign language proficiency, sothey will find it hard to compete with regional rivals.  

Regarding foreign language skills, a key requirement for tourismworkers, around 60% of the workers in the sector can speak foreignlanguages. Of them, only 42% can speak English and 15% have a goodcommand of spoken English. 

“Talents from ASEAN nations can come to Vietnam to land a job while domestic laborers lack necessary skills,” Luu said. 

Under an agreement on the hospitality industry signed by ASEAN tourismministers in 2009, tourism laborers can work in any ASEAN countries from2015. According to this agreement, citizens holding certificates issuedby any tourism certification boards in ASEAN nations are recognized byregional countries and can travel freely among these nations for guestwork.

Some countries like Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia have madepreparations for the integration process but Vietnamese workers in thesector have yet to do this. 

Tran Hung Viet, general director of Saigontourist Holding Company(Saigontourist), said travel enterprises play a key role in traininghuman resources. Saigontourist has 17,000 employees and always organizesmanagement courses in Vietnam and abroad to improve its workers’management skills to keep up with the new standards of the tourismsector.

The firm also carries out many programs in which its staff joinrefresher courses to share knowledge and experience with each other. 

Viet said the development of human resources is essential to the growth of all firms including Saigontourist.

“We target a yearly growth rate of some 10%. To translate it intoreality, Saigontourist has to build more hotels and invest in humanresources training so that employees can operate these facilities in aprofitable way. Therefore, investments in human resources are veryimportant and they require certain standards,” he said.

Tourism sector faces challenges in AEC

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