Human Capital Key To Growing Tourism, Says P A T A Chief: Thailand

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Human capital key to growing tourism, says PATA chief

BAMRUNG AMNATCHAROENRIT

THE NATION

BANGKOK: -- Thailand should put more importance on investing in human capital and not just in "hardware" in the tourism industry if it wants to secure its sustainable development and keep its leadership in the region in this field, said Martin Craigs, chief executive officer of the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).

It's easy to build the hardware of the tourism industry - airports and hotels, for example. But given the boom in tourism and its role as a key driver to build the economy, Thailand is facing a labour shortage. Still, this is not yet a major problem when compared with other nations in Asia, he said.

Labour shortages have become common across Asia. China is one example, where it is creating a big headache for the fast-growing tourism industry. Meanwhile in the Philippines, although it can produce more than 26,000 graduates to serve the industry annually, 90 per cent of them choose to go overseas.

Craigs said Thailand should be promoting the learning of foreign languages. The evidence is clear that there are large numbers of Russian tourists pouring into the Kingdom, but there are not enough Russian-speaking locals to take care of them.

He raised the example of Chanin Donavanik, CEO of Dusit Thani. Chanin had done a "great" job with his attempt to introduce professional graduates to the industry, and not only to run his hotel chain. This would help secure not only the industry in the long run, but also regional development.

TRAINING PROFESSIONALS

Craigs said producing professionals for the industry was also the focus of PATA. It intends to help train people from different fields to apply their professions in the tourism industry. Under the plan, there are four classes per year, each with 36 people for a one-week training programme.

The free flow of skilled labour from the opening of the Asean Economic Community in 2015 may not solve the shortage. To the contrary, it could create new problems, as the integration of the European Union did in the beginning. So opening up the region was not a panacea, he said.

But he was confident Thailand would maintain its leadership in this field after 2015. Clearly, the country is more advanced than its rivals in hotel facilities and attracts the largest number of foreign tourists in the region.

However, what the country should do is take the responsibility to share both its good and bad experiences with all AEC members to secure sustainable growth as a whole. Having a wide gap in infrastructure development among members of the bloc was not conducive to integration.

The member states would have to work together to share benefits. In particular, the six nations of the Greater Mekong Subregion should cooperate in creating tourist attractions and activities and protect the environment at the same time, he said. The GMS was poised to become one of the world's top tourism destinations for the next generation, thanks to its unspoiled natural resources and rich cultural heritage.

To keep its role strong, it was not essential for Thailand to construct manmade projects as a new magnet to lure foreign tourists, Craigs said. In fact, the country could sell itself naturally, with both social and cultural aspects of the Thai way of Thai life, beyond the unique natural beauty seen nationwide.

-- The Nation 2012-12-17

[Thai at Heart]

It's easy to build the hardware.

Has this guy inspected the sewer and wws in most of the resorts?

[MaxLee]

Thai people are getting frustrated at the thought of a language which is taught and perceived as "ENGLISH GRAMMAR" and you expect them to learn CHINESE AND RUSSIAN????

Their education system teaches them to blindly follow from the top to bottom without questioning in a prison yard called "EDUCATION FACILITIES" which teaches ZERO HUMAN BEHAVIOR...

[WilliaminBKK]

Then perhaps PATA can offer more than 144 seats per year to solve this supposed problem & help develop a training programme for hotels and tour operators. The Philippines is a poor example, the 26K take courses to work abroad, not to work locally as the tourism industry is dismal there.

In terms of languages France has almost 80 million visitors annually, I speak French and am still treated like crap. I'm sure a Russian doesn't go to Paris expecting to speak Russian in hotels, on the bus, in restaurants, tourist attractions etc. If there is so much demand for Thais to speak a language other than English it is a tour operators problem that they don't spend the money training their staff. If Russian/Japanese/Korean are needed why not send Thais to Russia to learn the Russian. I do think all this language concern will be eased in a few years with technology, there will be an app for that as they say.

PATA should be focusing on train the trainer, the above sounds like a Friday night pub crawl- I can't find staff & I wish the Government spent more money helping me instead of building new roads and airports.

In my experience there will always be a pool of candidates if the salary and work conditions are decent, after all most think tourism is glamorous, look at airlines a job is announced and thousands of qualified staff apply.

[noitom]

It seems like the blind leading the blind here. Thais need to invest in their own education, and "infrastructure" not hardware. Educational infrastructure. Recommending that they learn Russian is putting their heads further in the sand and stuck in the Thai way of rejecting anything proposed by outsiders. Other posters made the valid point that Russians don't come here expecting Thais to speak Russian, they do expect Thais to be able to speak sufficient English to help them and communicate on an adult level.

[Beng]

Easy to build the hardware means destroying nature, too often.

[Kularius]

Well... what you can expect in country where even emigration officer can barely speak English?

When I came to Thailand first what I have done was trying to find job in hospitality industry as I have over 6 years of experience from Radisson Birmingham UK and 4 years as leader/supervisor/manager... from Housekeeping to Front Office... and I can speak Polish, English,Spanish and Russian but well they dont want to hire foreigners so I was forced to set up my own business :-)

And I don't think that this situation is going to change quick... Thai are thinking that all what is Thai is the best and whole world should speak Thai if they want to come here... I just see most of them as a strong nationalists...

[TackyToo]

...and if you pay peanuts you get somtam eating monkeys!