Training hotel staff imperative in post conflict era
View(s):The Sri Lanka tourism industry believes that there needs to be more focus on training the local workforce for the sector alongside the new degree offering institutions coming up lately.
An industry veteran, Srilal Miththapala speaking with the Business Times said that this was going to be an issue as most of the institutions were offering degree programmes and the workforce from these were mainly for the top end.
“They don’t understand the hard work and the patience,” he said explaining that there was indeed a “big gap” between these two segments of the workforce in the hotel sector.
Research carried out during the war period highlighted that most entering the hotel industry were those that were unable to enter any other sector, Mr. Miththapala said. However, with the fast changing hotel industry and its large number of arrivals today more people were interested in joining the sector but there was insufficient mass training for the lower end taking place.
Sri Lanka Institute of Tourist Hotel Management (SLITHM) Chairman Chandra Mohotti told the Business Times that the reason was the exodus of trained staff accumulated over a 30- year period resulting in a vacuum.
He pointed out that insufficient trainers to conduct training for new staff entering the sector were some of the major constraints to training the staff in the hotels.
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