She made the statement at a meeting organized by the Vietnam Tourism Association yesterday in Ho Chi Minh City. The Vietnam Tourism Association has launched the program “Urgent solutions for provision of high-quality human resources in the hospitality management” with the participation of tourism association from cities, provinces, the Imperial International Hotel College (IIHC), and Ho Chi Minh City University of Economics and Finance.
Ms. Huong Hoai added that high-qualified manpower also contributes to promote Vietnam’s tourism industry into one of key make tourism a key economic sector.
Speaking at the meeting, Chairman of Viet Nam Tourism Association Nguyen Huu Tho stressed that the tourism industry in Vietnam has developed so quickly in recent years that it doesn’t have enough qualified human resources to serve such growth.
Specifically, Vietnam’s labor productivity last year was among the lowest in Asia despite showing growth. Vietnam's labor productivity is only 1/15th of Singapore, 1/10th of Japan and 1/5 of Thailand.
He explained that schools in Vietnam focus on theory more than practice; therefore, enterprises must re-train university graduates. Moreover, tourism companies have scrambled for high-qualified employees making the manpower problem worse.
In reality, to compete with other countries in Asia, Vietnam has no choice but train manpower in the hospitality management as per international standard by teaching practices more.
The Vietnam Tourism Association has chosen Imperial International Hotel College, a member of the Imperial Group to be its partner in the program by developing a 16-week international standard short course. This move is considered as a solution to redress the imbalance between unemployed university graduates and shortage of high-quality labor in the hospitality management in four or five-star hotels.
