Expert suggests improving quality HR capital in Sri Lanka’s tourism
Improving the quality and quantity of human resource capital is the first thing Sri Lanka should do to compete with other South Asian destinations and attract high income travellers, according to internationally renowned tourism expert Chandana (Chandi) Jayawardena.In an interview with the Business Times via Skype, he said Sri Lanka’s first challenge now is to be more competitive by increasing the number of more trained staff.
The country needs at least 43,452 new tourism workers in the next five years, for direct employment alone.
“Given that the Sri Lanka Institute of Tourism and Hotel Management (SLITHM) has no capacity to produce that number of trained professionals we need to be creative and innovative in rapidly increasing the quality and quantity of our human resource capital,” he said.
Dr. Jayawardena, now based in Canada, has emerged as a highly sought after trainer and consultant in the international hospitality industry, after a long career in Sri Lankan hotels. He has held senior management positions in South Asia, Middle East, Europe, South America, the Caribbean and North America and held accountability for budgets of US$30 million, 700 employees and 3,300 students. Dr. Jayawardena returned to the island this week to conduct two training workshops for the hospitality sector at SLITHM in Colombo June 28-29 and at Randholee Hotel in Kandy on July 1-2.
He noted that it is essential to provide continuing education opportunities for current employees in tourism/hospitality to encourage higher certification and multi-skill development.
Dr. Jayawardena stressed the need of re-introducing the concept of “on the job trainers” from hotels to train new employees in key operational areas and encourage some Sri Lankan hotel workers with good overseas experience to return home, offering attractive packages.
He pointed out that in order to promote tourism/hospitality as an attractive career option to high school students, measures should be taken to develop tourism infused curricula in secondary education and introduce a dual credit system for tourism/hospitality subjects between high schools and post-secondary institutions.
He also stressed the need to provide “fast-track” education/training opportunities in tourism/hospitality for university graduates from other disciplines and promote the concept of functional hotel schools by expanding training department’s at large hotels.
He has suggested a 10-point strategy focussing on improving Sri Lanka’s world ranking, each year in international rating systems such as the Travel & Tourism Competitiveness Index (TTCI) of World Economic Forum and Future Brand.
The strategy includes paying special attention to four TTCI pillars, where Sri Lanka did relatively poorly – tourism infrastructure, human resources (availability of qualified labour), information communication technology and environmental sustainability.
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