Tourism Indochina: World Tourism News: Human resource issues threaten tourism industry

Human resource issues threaten tourism industry

The Paris-based Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) has released a report identifying three of the most important trends and policy challenges facing global tourism: effective governance practices evaluation of policies and programmes, and human resources development. All three are of direct relevance to Thailand and Asean.

The report says that major changes will need to be made in the three areas to boost tourism competitiveness and sustainability for each OECD country, and selected non-members.

In a foreword, Sergio Arzeni, director of OECD's Centre for Entrepreneurship, SMEs and Local Development, notes that this third edition of OECD Tourism Trends and Policies has been produced for the first time in partnership with the European Commission.

The report notes that OECD member countries play a leading role in international tourism, representing 66% of global arrivals in 2010, while EU member countries accounted for 50.2%. Domestic tourism consumption represents a very significant share of the total tourism economy, averaging 61%, and above 80% for Chile, Germany, Japan, Mexico, the United Kingdom and the United States.

However, the report says emerging tourism destination countries are outperforming the OECD and global averages for GDP and employment. Countries such as Argentina, Brazil, Egypt, India, Indonesia, and South Africa hold significant potential as sources of growth for traditional tourism destinations.

The three key points examined in the report conclude thus:

- The adoption of effective governance practices that reflect the changing business and policy environment can help to facilitate an integrated, whole-of-government approach to tourism, supporting stronger, greener and more inclusive tourism growth.

- Evaluation is the most appropriate means of demonstrating tourism's value to an economy and should play an integral role in the development and implementation of policy. Adhering to an evaluation road map can help countries to improve the evaluation process.

- In many countries, tourism jobs remain vacant due to a lack of appropriately skilled workers, and there is a need for governments to assume a greater leadership role in shaping the training and education agenda. A national tourism strategy, including a workforce development strategy, is necessary to fully address labour and skills shortages.

The third point is considered to be especially important.

The report "highlights the increasing gap between labour demand growth and labour supply, as well as significant changes in labour force composition, which is putting pressure on employers to improve tourism industry attractiveness and the retention of workers. Confronted with a looming labour and skills shortage, employers must develop strategies that will allow them to remain competitive with a smaller but better trained workforce.

"Numerous drivers, including an aging clientele, changing lifestyles and consumer demands, the increasing use of information and communication technologies, and globalisation, all contribute to growing pressure to upgrade skills levels, even among workers who are considered well trained. The general lack of a training culture and management skills among employers is a major hurdle that needs to be overcome."

One key challenge facing the OECD countries is the issue of migrant workers, which is also true in the case of Thailand and Asean.

Says the report, "The seasonal and cyclical nature of the tourism industry makes the option of migrant workers an attractive one for many employers, as they can expand and contract their workforce as demand fluctuates. However, while migrants can be a partial solution to the labour shortage, they often do not contribute to addressing the skills shortage.

The report also notes the increasing complexity of changes at the policy level.

It says: "Although national, regional and local governments are playing an increasing role in the delivery of tourism, a challenge is that in many countries this role has evolved in an ad-hoc manner and often with no clear definition of the overall role of tourism beyond its contribution to economic development."

Source: Bangkokpost:23/07/2012

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