VietNamNet Bridge – The tourism industry in HCMC needs over 21,000 workers, especially tour guides, each year between now and 2020, said the HCMC Forecast Center of Manpower and Labor Market Information.

A tour guide speaks to cruise tourists visiting a tourist site in HCM City.

Tran Anh Tuan, deputy director of the center, told the Daily that the demand for tourism labor would increase strongly in the coming years, especially after 2015 when an ASEAN agreement on free movement of the tourism workforce within the bloc becomes effective.

Tuan also added that the labor quality in the city’s tourism industry remains low, with many people holding managerial positions still not conversant in foreign languages.

A survey conducted by the center last year shows some 30% to 45% of tour guides and tour coordinators and some 70-80% of receptionists at restaurants and hotels are not qualified in terms of foreign languages.

Tourism is a key industry of the city, but the lack of tour guides with good command of foreign languages is hindering its development. In the city, there are not only 2020 tour guides recognized by the Vietnam National Administration for Tourism, including 1,250 English-fluent

Source: SGT