Hilton sees a Sri Lanka in its Golden Age of tourism
View(s):Sri Lanka’s biggest asset is its workforce that has experience in the hospitality industry and those trained overseas need to come back home to live in the country’s now golden age of tourism; this is an endorsement from a hotel chain set to turn a hundred years next year.
Mr. Paul Hutton
As one of the few nations in Asia with a sizeable diaspora, Hilton’s Vice President for Operations South East Asia Paul Hutton said in an interview with the Business Times on Tuesday at the Hilton Colombo that they hoped these people would come back home as the difference this time around is “this is the golden age for Sri Lanka” safe with foreign investments flowing in.
He noted that Hilton itself has made deals with local investors to build seven hotels in the country that would be managed by them for a period of 15-20 years.
With the positive sense of inbound tourism today Sri Lanka has become a top destination attracting families to vacation from seven to 14 days, Mr. Hutton said.
The rich asset that Sri Lanka possesses is its experienced workforce which is hard to find in many countries, it was noted.
“We have successful people who are sent abroad and come back with more exposure,” he said adding that the hotel in Colombo has been able to maintain a staff turnover of 15-16 per cent which includes what the company calls quality turnover as well. Quality turnover is when workers are shifted around within the network thereby creating vacancies in the jobs in locations they previously held.
Hilton offers respect and a future for its workforce and the key concept they work around is to ensure that everyone remains happy in their workplace, Mr. Hutton noted. The hotel invests in training its staff with three hours per team member per month.
Following on from the hotel’s leadership conference held last year in October, Hilton this year is conducting a “Steps for Success” Conference ongoing in Colombo right now that attempts to identify and prepare the high potential staff for General Manager positions in future.
The graduation is scheduled to take place in Colombo for the Asia Pacific Region with two Sri Lankans also tipped to graduate as well, Mr. Hutton explained.
Commenting on the issue raised by a number of others in the industry that Sri Lankans lack in their soft skills, he explained that what they find in the Sri Lankans are a team that is confident, well educated and well travelled and believed that the challenge was on the hotel to retain their staff.
“We faced greater challenges in greater Asia than in Sri Lanka,” he said. On the other hand, he pointed out that “Hilton is a brand that people’s families are happy to work for.”
Mr. Hutton noted that Hilton will be opening up with the seven hotels planned for the next few years with the first of them scheduled to open in Weeravila in the fourth quarter of this year.
The hotel chain has also found opportunities set to open in the West and North of the country for which they would be searching to partner with more local investors in a bid to bridge the gap with the right brand, he said.
Hilton believes that destination marketing is required to attract the right clientele mainly from the top two markets like India and China. From China safety is crucial whereas the Europeans want a mix of blue skies, the beaches and English-speaking friendly people, Mr. Hutton said explaining the different demands from the varying markets.
He also noted that today more and more free individual travelers especially from China were visiting the island nation due to the country’s wider appeal not particularly due to the crisis in the Maldives.
As the Hilton brand completes a hundred years next year the Hilton Colombo Residencies was also marking its anniversary.
| No impact from Kandy crisis | |
| Kandy had no impact on the city hotels in Colombo and Hilton’s Vice President for Operations South East Asia Paul Hutton noted that the key concern was that people are safe. He pointed out that some tour operators had called up to find out about the situation and asserted that the important aspect was that Sri Lanka continued to remain a safe destination. Commenting on the clamp on social media, he said that most guests were able to access the services through stronger bandwidths noting that “every country faces challenges from time to time”. On the contrary, Mr. Hutton noted that he would have had more concerns about access to social media sites when travelling in countries like Myanmar and Vietnam. |