VietNamNet Bridge – Tourism service providers say that employees need more training on foreign languages and soft skills like communication, teamwork and problem-solving, though they are largely satisfied with marketing, sales and other skills of employees.

This is the finding of a survey of the Environmental and Socially Responsible Tourism Capacity Development Program funded by the European Union. The survey was conducted in 12 provinces and cities with 183 tourist accommodation facilities, 92 travel firms and hundreds of tourist sites, healthcare centers and restaurants.

Accommodation facilities are satisfied with marketing, kitchen and room service staff and restaurants with management and kitchen staff. Meanwhile, travel enterprises highly evaluate sales, marketing and tour management skills of their employees.

However, responding to the question what skills should be taught to employees, most surveyed enterprises stress the importance of languages, soft skills and some new marketing techniques such as online marketing.

Such result was released by experts of the program at a workshop on implementation of ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement on Tourism Professionals held in HCMC last week.

With this mutual recognition arrangement, starting from 2015, tourism professionals certified by the Tourism Certification Board of one of the ten ASEAN countries will be recognized by other ASEAN countries and can work there.

Le Tuan Anh from the Vietnam National Administration of Tourism said that new labor requirements posed a big challenge to the local tourism staff. Without improving skills, it was likely that many would lose their jobs due to competition of laborers from regional countries.

“Currently, countries like Laos, Cambodia and Indonesia are in intense preparation for the professional recognition. Thousands of Indonesians have registered to be mutual laborers of the region,” he said.

According to Vu The Binh, vice chairman of the Vietnam Tourism Association, the mutual recognition is a significant progress enabling enterprises to increase the quality of human resources. Enterprises can have high-quality laborers, which is also a challenge, especially to small enterprises, when retaining employees.

Regarding the hotel sector, laborers will face tougher competition as incomes of many hotel managers and marketing executives in Vietnam are as high as or even higher than those of regional countries.

“The current problem is that few enterprises and laborers are preparing for the new competition. However, the mutual recognition is implemented anyway and it will help capable enterprises have better preparations,” Binh said.

Source: SGT