The launch of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) late this year is expected to create many opportunities and challenges as well for the domestic tourism sector, especially in the area of human resources, but the tourism workforce has yet to take steps to prepare for the worst-case scenario.

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

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

Regarding foreign language skills, a key requirement for tourism workers, around 60% of the workers in the sector can speak foreign languages. Of them, only 42% can speak English and 15% have a good command 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 tourism ministers in 2009, tourism laborers can work in any ASEAN countries from 2015. According to this agreement, citizens holding certificates issued by any tourism certification boards in ASEAN nations are recognized by regional countries and can travel freely among these nations for guest work.

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

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

The firm also carries out many programs in which its staff join refresher 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 into reality, Saigontourist has to build more hotels and invest in human resources training so that employees can operate these facilities in a profitable way. Therefore, investments in human resources are very important and they require certain standards,” he said.