Boosting tourism plays key role in plans to eradicate poverty

Development of tourism has been part of the stimulus plan initiated by the Government which intended to reduce the negative impact of the economic downturn on the nation’s development, generating jobs for many poor people.
At a two-day conference entitled Human Resources Development in Tourism and Poverty Alleviation: Uncharted Territory, Tran Chien Thang, Deputy Minister of Culture, Sports and Tourism said during 2000-08, income from tourism increased at a much higher rate than the average growth in the numbers of Vietnamese and foreign tourists.
Dr Trinh Xuan Dung of the Viet Nam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) said that in 2005, foreign currency earnings from tourism reached more than US$2.3 billion and in 2008, it was $4 billion with an average annual growth rate of 15.6 per cent.
Compared to GDP, total revenue from tourism in the 2000-08 period accounted for 4.15 per cent per year.
He added that tourism also generated many jobs to society, especially for poor people.
According to the latest statistics of VNAT, by 2008, the tourism industry employed, either directly and indirectly, more than 1 million people, accounting for 10 per cent of the labour force in the service sector and 4 per cent of working people nationwide.
Sung Thi Hoa, a Mong ethnic minority woman, works as a waitress at a restaurant in the mountainous district of Sa Pa, northern Lao Cai Province and earns a monthly salary of VND1 million (US$55).
Hoa said that many young people from her village worked as tourist guides, bakers or service staff in hotels and restaurants in the district. Their lives had changed for the better with their improved incomes. Their families were no longer afraid of hunger.
Douglas Hainsworth, senior consultant of the Human Resources Development in Tourism Project, said that in rural areas with limited options for non-agricultural earning opportunities, tourism could provide sources for off-farm income earnings. In urban areas, the tourism sector could also provide opportunities for the poor. Engaging in informal sector activities such as selling products as food or souvenirs to tourists, or gaining entry level positions working in tourism enterprises as cleaners and food services were examples.
According to many experts, people working in the tourism sector have slightly higher incomes and the services generally offer higher returns than other economic sectors.
The General Statistics Office revealed that hotels and restaurants alone ranked 6th out of the 18 national economic sectors in Viet Nam in terms of their efficiency.
A person working in hotels or restaurants earns VND78 million ($4,300) per year while an agricultural labourer earns VND32 million ($1,700) per year or a construction worker VND40 million ($2,200) per year.
Dung said this was the way tourism helped the country’s poverty alleviation aims.
Thang said that tourism was considered as a high potential service sector, high in added value and strongly competitive, but in order to reach international standards, it required high quality human resources.
Tourism training
Hainsworth suggested that it was necessary to improve access to tourism training opportunities for the poor. To more fully engage the poor in tourism training programmes, they needed to be affordable, fit local employment conditions, and be based near to where the poor lived. Vocational skills should be based on both the current abilities of training participants and the jobs they would likely engage in.
He added that entry level positions could provide the vital step to get out of poverty, and the full potential of people from disadvantaged backgrounds should be further supported by opportunities to train for higher level positions in the industry.
Pham Thi Vy, headmaster of Hoa Sua Economic Tourism School, one of the most well-known vocational training schools to offer free training courses in tourism for nearly 4,000 poor people aged between 18 and 25, said that only about 50 per cent of employees in tourism had taken training programmes.
Vy said that the school’s students were mainly from the poor districts of Hai Phong, Quang Ninh, Lao Cai, Hue, Da Nang, Quang Nam and Khanh Hoa, provinces with high tourism potential, but where tourism enterprises found it difficult to find good quality employees. The school picked up the young people in these localities to train them in hospitality skills such as restaurant service, reception and cooking.
She added that the students returned to their hometowns and applied what they had learned from the school and developed their life skills and their local cultural identities.
Hoa, an ex-Hoa Sua student said she had to do the training course at the school before finding work in a restaurant in Sa Pa District. She was going to take part in pastry-making course at school. She hoped to combine her new skills with her village’s traditional cakes in order to improve their attractiveness to customers.
Hoa hoped more young people in rural Viet Nam could have the chance to improve their vocational skills so that they could secure permanent jobs, while satisfying tourists.
Participants at the meeting were informed of the Viet Nam Tourism Occupation Skill Standard System (VTOS) – a system attempting to guarantee international standards in the Vietnamese tourism industry.
The project on human resources development funded by the European Union aimed to improve the quality and standard of human resources working in the tourism sector from 2004-10.
VNAT’s Dung said that through improved human capabilities and skills in tourism, it was expected that the average growth rate of foreign currency earnings from tourism in 2011-20 would be more than 16 per cent per year, with revenue from tourism increasing at more than 18 per cent per year on average. The average growth in the number of international tourists and domestic tourists would be 9-9.5 per cent and 10-13 per cent per year,` respectively.