Human resources are headache for central region’s tourism sector

Da Nang City alone is expected to have 45 more hotel and resort projects by 2012. Finding trained manpower to staff these ventures is really a difficult problem, reports Tuoi Tre.
Every investor aims to train a labour force and retain qualified workers. It’s not easy when they are in short supply – a problem for the travel industry throughout the central coast region.
Resorts are on the prowl for qualified workers
At the Nam Hai resort, the key positions are held by people who once worked for Furama, the first five star resort in the central region, or for other resorts or hotels in HCM City or Hanoi, according to HR manager Tran Thi Canh. Canh herself worked a Furama for 10 years.
Canh said that before long in the central region, more posh resorts will be put into operation by big name chains. She expects competition in the labour market to become very stiff, and many key staff to jump to other jobs
Anticipating this, Nam Hai and other top resorts and hotels are reconsidering their labour force policies. They are recruiting assistants to key staff in anticipation of possible defections and improving benefits and promotion opportunities.
According to Tuoi tre, the managers of restaurants, hotels and luxury resorts in the central region all express worry about their chances of recruiting ordinary staff in the next several years.
The central region is especially short of top managers. Big resorts and hotels in Da Nang City and adjacent Quang Nam province are raiding workers from other resorts and hotels by offering attractive wages and job promotion opportunities.
The director of a travel firm said that said that one new complex has been looking for a general director for many months, but no candidate has turned up. A whole team of managers has to come from Taiwan to run another resort that has just opened in Da Nang.
Can the laws of supply and demand solve the problem?
Huynh Tan Vinh, General Director of the Bac My An Furama Resort, is chairman of the Da Nang Tourism Association. He says Da Nang is now the “promised land” for tourism development.
The Da Nang Planning and Investment Department, by the end of June 2010, counted 55 tourism projects registered in the city, with $2.8 billion dollars in capitalization. It is expected that Da Nang will gain another 45 more projects in 2010-2012, two-thirds of them along the coast from Son Tra to Dien Ngoc. In the next three years, four and five star beach hotels alone will need 8000 workers.
Unskilled workers are abundant, while qualified and trained workers are scarce.
According to Vinh, students graduated by local schools meet only ten percent of the demand. Most study to become receptionists or tour guides, while few are trained to become cooks, chambermaids or security guards.
Vitours chief Cao Tri Dung says the central region lacks tour guides that can work with tourists from new markets like South Korea, Thailand and Spain.
At the Huong Giang Travel Agency, Nguyen Hang Quy says 40 percent of his clients are from Thailand, but he’s unable to find tour guides who can speak Thai.
Tourism sector firms seem to have lost faith in the market to meet their needs. Many urge that local authorities ‘should apply suitable policies’ to attract highly qualified workers from HCM City and Hanoi..