New hotel school to focus on entire service industry

Dr. Rohith Gerald Delilkhan, a UK national of Sri Lankan origin resident in Switzerland, will head the new Swiss Institute of Hospitality and Banking, scheduled to open on 5 May in Sri Lanka. 

Dr. Delilkhan has been involved in strategic business development and manpower projects in Europe and in Asia at board level for government organisations and blue-chip corporations; he also served as a CEO for Swiss and German companies between 1995 and 2013.

The history and best practices of the travel and tourism industries have been a focus of his research in his academic capacity in Singapore and Switzerland.

He was conferred the LEAP award by the Economic Development Board of Singapore for his contributions to the development of the Singapore economy and a professorship in Switzerland in recognition of his contributions to restructuring higher education.

He is currently the CEO BaSSAG Asia, Director Centre for International Management at St. Gallen Management Institute (SGMI), and Member of the Management Board, St. Gallen International Management Consulting.

In this interview, Dr. Delilkhan speaks of the new Swiss Institute that will open shortly:

Q: When and what gave birth to the idea of a hotel school in Sri Lanka?

A: I personally have spent over 20 years advising airports, airlines, logistics companies, hotels, tourism authorities, banks and IT companies on their training and development strategies, then recently it was like a Eureka moment, when I realised how much my country would benefit from just these sorts of skills.

So last year I met with a number of key institutions in the hospitality and banking industries in Sri Lanka and couldn’t believe how delighted they were at the prospect of being able to improve their industries as well as what Sri Lanka as a country has to offer.

Sri Lankans are naturally charming and hospitable people, but they haven’t been trained in the same way people in many other countries have and the potential of this wonderful talent pool is enormous.

Since then, things have moved very quickly, as you can see!

Q: Are you focusing on banking or hospitality? 

A: We will start with hospitality, but the focus is on the entire service industry, as all service industries share a common basis of customer service and process delivery, two sides of the same coin, so to speak.

Q: What is your honest opinion of service standards in this country, in the banking and tourism sectors? 

A: Service delivery is sincere and as I have already said, people in Sri Lanka are by nature kind and friendly. However, warmth and action are very different things and many Sri Lankans simply haven’t been trained in how best to look after their guests and customers. Great customer service means much more than a smile, there are also lots of things that need to be done and procedures that need to be followed. These are skills that need to be developed. Let me give you an example:

I was staying at a good resort hotel on the West Coast and noticed that most of the waiters were hiding near the kitchen, while foreign guests were looking for staff to place orders with. The staff were shy because they felt overawed by the need to take orders in English and possibly misunderstand them, so they rather avoided contact. The missing capability here was confidence – even if your English is not good, you should trust your instincts and approach the guest. 

You need to be trained in what to do and given confidence by knowing that you are doing the right thing. This training would also cover procedural things like how to deal with a customer’s query or problem most effectively. 

Customer service is not about just being nice to a guest, but supplying the guest with what the guest needs. It’s great that by nature Sri Lankans are so nice, as it is very difficult to train people to be nice, but you can train them very rapidly in most other areas, something which is wonderful for them personally as well as for their business and for the country as a whole. It’s a great opportunity.

Q: Is the lack of fluency in English a drawback? 

A: Yes it is and language training is also very important. However, as in the example we have just discussed, there is a huge amount supervisors and managers can do to improve service even without their staff being fluent in English.

The problem is, in my experience and from what everyone I have spoken to has to say, there is a distinct lack of training for supervisors and managers in all service sector organisations, be they telecommunications companies, retail stores, hotels, or your airline ground staff. Supervisors and managers are not given much – if any – training and coaching in managing their staff and creating efficiencies for the organisation. They too would benefit enormously from being properly trained.

I have observed on a number of occasions in service sector operations – several in Colombo during our mystery-shopping tour over the last six months – a supervisor will be sitting in a corner while staff are having conversations with each other and customers patiently queuing up but not being served, as staff feel threatened by customers and supervisors are not equipped to deal with such contingencies. 

This is the case in many service industry businesses in Sri Lanka. People inherit supervisor and manager roles, but are not developed for those roles. Companies pay a huge cost for this – in most of the companies I have looked at, there could easily be a 50% efficiency gain and a substantial profitability increase if they did things differently – and they are aware of this. 

Many of these companies are complaining about a lack of appropriately skilled staff, which is a major problem, too, but would not be as dramatic if efficiencies were fully tapped into. So there is a quality issue and a volume problem we face in Sri Lanka. There simply aren’t sufficient external training organisations to deliver the quality and volume of staff required and the cost and logistics of doing it internally can be prohibitive for companies. They are desperate for help.

Q: How will the Institute address this problem? 

A: The three key things are expertise, collaboration and investment. 

Expertise: We are bringing exceptional skills in training and development that are proven in the world’s most competitive destinations and markets, and will start by training trainers (the people who will be running the training courses) with top Swiss experts, a program we are inviting industry professionals in Sri Lanka to enrol for. Then there are market specific programs, as well as Sri Lankan specific programs, which take account of all the needs of and opportunities for the Sri Lankan service economy. This package will make a massive difference to individuals, businesses and the country alike, but as it is the individual skills which deliver the benefits to companies and the country itself, I like to focus on upskilling individuals and developing their careers and indeed their lives.

Collaboration: What we are doing will bring benefits right across the board. It is hard to think of any organisation or part of Sri Lankan society that won’t benefit, as the project will affect the overall prosperity of the country, building tourism, creating jobs and strengthening our economy on a financial level. In addition, it will bring unity and pride and perhaps most importantly hope and confidence on an emotional level.

For these reasons we have had a phenomenal response from all bodies we have spoken with to date and we are committed to working collaboratively across the board on an ongoing basis to the greater good for all. 

Investment: Since we are also going to build a campus and a training hotel as part of the overall project, the overall budget will not be less than a good-sized hotel project in the country. This is a significant investment and is worth every rupee. Although I cannot give any details of investment at this point, I would like to say that the organisations with whom we are currently talking are all either Sri Lankan or have a significant presence in our country. The uniqueness of our project lies in the fact that it is not just some foreign investment coming into a third-world country. We see Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans as our peers and this project is a Swiss-Sri Lankan Partnership, with both sides contributing towards building something which is best placed in Sri Lanka and not anywhere else in the world.

Q: Who is on the board of the institute? 

A: There are two specific bodies with two very different sets of roles: There is an Advisory Board and an Academic Council. 

The Advisory Board is our consultative partner for the industry – it will provide input for us to address industry needs on a continuous basis. Currently Andrea Kuhn-Senn (former CEO of the Swiss Bankers’ Association’s training school, CYP, the top banking school in Switzerland), Adrian Zecha (Chairman of Aman Resorts) and Dominique Nordmann (CEO of Resplendent Ceylon) are members. We are currently speaking to further thought leaders in the industry in Sri Lanka to bring them on board as well. 

The Academic Council is our quality control body and is chaired by the President of the University of Applied Science St. Gallen, Dr. Sebastian Wörwag, who is widely known in Europe for his innovative approaches to improving quality standards at educational and training institutions. Furthermore, each partner training institution from Switzerland has a seat in the Academic Council.

Q: Will the institute be a mini-university?

A: Please forgive me for a slightly long-winded answer to this question, but I think it is worth explaining the approach we are taking.

Switzerland has, as have the other countries in the German speaking world, a dual-track education system, whereby qualifications along a professional vocational pathway ultimately opens the road to university education as you progress along your life career. By contrast, in Asia, the UK style academic approach of universities and on-the-job training for those with a vocational background have led to a downgrading of vocational qualifications, in the perception of the general public. 

In the continental European system, both pathways can lead you to the top of the industry or the civil service. The difference is that the vocational pathway is more practical and hands-on, whereas the academic pathway is, in my opinion, more research focused. In Switzerland less than 15% of school graduates go to university after completing school. 

Another key point is that the professional education and training route works in close proximity to industry and industry input into the needs and skills is paramount in program development and delivery. People should leave job ready. This, of course, cannot be the remit of a university, which always develops people for a broader set of opportunities. I personally have experience of the impact of this from Singapore where I ran programs for banks, who had to put in place two years of training for university graduates in different areas of the bank before they become fully productive for the institution. This was a direct result of the fact that people coming from universities are not job ready. 

So the answer to your question is that the approach we are taking does not follow the university blueprint, rather we will create a training and development environment where people can practice what they learn so they are confident by the time they go out to work in the industry – which brings me back to the example of the shy waiters who felt they could not communicate with foreign customers. 

Professional training is about giving people the opportunity to practice and practice, again and again, until they can perform without hesitation and attain levels of confidence that make service industry work happier and more effective. Without such training, the service industry can be stressful for staff and for supervisors alike and can lead to people abandoning an otherwise promising career. 

Q: You say ‘The Swiss Institute of Hospitality and Banking is the first in the world to address the needs of all service industries: Aviation, banking, hospitality, logistics, retail, telecommunications and tourism’; how do you propose to handle all these different sectors? 

A: Indeed, that looks like a challenge on paper. Please let me explain. As said earlier, I have personally spent a good twenty years advising airports, airlines, logistics companies, hotels, tourism authorities, banks and IT companies on their training and development strategies and there is considerable overlap and many more similarities than differences. For example, in Switzerland, people from hotels are frequently employed in banks, people from banks work as heads of retail organisations and so on. 

The industries are different, but the core skills are almost identical. Hence, in due course we will have separate institutes for each specific area of the service industry, for instance an institute for transport, travel and logistics, which will operate independently of the Swiss Institute of Hospitality and Banking; however, they will share the same essential infrastructure.

There are many benefits of this approach, not least cost efficiency, but also, and crucially, the fact that this will help create a flexible workforce, capable of moving from one service industry to another, with all the benefits that will bring.

Q: How many students can the institute cater to per annum? 

A: We are at the start now, so it is difficult to estimate, but the initial target for the campus is 10,000 per annum. At some point we will also offer residential programs to foreign students, as further down the track we want to make Sri Lanka a training and development hub for the service industry in Asia. 

Q: Could you describe some of the programs you will be conducting? 

A: In hospitality, there will be modular certificate programs in Food and Beverages, Reception, Concierge/Butler Services, Housekeeping, Kitchen and Cooking, besides English for the hospitality industry, of course, and these can be knit together to provide participants a pathway to a full diploma in hospitality. We will also offer a special Supervisory Excellence course which will provide the industry with the opportunity to train their supervisors to the next level and also address some of the issues they currently face with inefficiencies and staffing.

Initially however, we will be conducting a Train-the-Trainer program for individuals with an industry background to certify them as trainers according to Swiss standards. Only Swiss-certified trainers can work for us. We want Sri Lankans with some industry experience to form the backbone of our training, so this program is open to them. There are so many people with solid industry experience who should be empowered to develop the next generation of talented Sri Lankans for the industry. The pilot program will take place at Cape Weligama Hotel courtesy of MJF Holdings. 

Q: Will you be heading the Institute indefinitely or will you be training a Sri Lankan for this position? 

A: First of all, I am a Sri Lankan myself, one of those who was born outside the country and grew up in a different environment. Although I am now somewhat of a foreigner, I am very much attuned to the culture and completely passionate about my country. I am awed by the quality of talent in the country today. That is why we are here – we could have set up this school anywhere in Asia. But for me, Sri Lanka is the only option.

A famous educational metaphor (often falsely ascribed to Sir Isaac Newton) runs as follows: On the shoulders of a giant, the dwarf will see further than the giant himself. By this I mean that I would hope to groom some of the best talent in this country to take over my/our roles from the team and bring the organisation we founded to an even higher level. I have great faith in the young to go beyond what we can see and achieve. And my greatest desire is to contribute to the youth of Sri Lanka moving Asia and the world again, as a generation once did decades ago.

Q: How many foreign lecturers will be there at any given time and will you continue to have them lecturing at the Institute or will they be there only at the initial phase? 

A: Foreign experts will be involved at the outset, but we need a large group of local trainers, not only for logistical and cost reasons, but also because of their complete understanding of the background and thinking of the local trainees. The role of our experts is in guiding trainers we have locally, not so much in running programs themselves for students.

Q: Where is the institute going to be located? 

A: We are currently looking at several options, with a corporate HQ in Colombo and a residential campus outside. This is still an ongoing evaluation process. Until we are ready, we will work with partners in the hospitality and banking industries for premises, as well as existing education institutions.

Q: You talk of taking your training programs out to the villages; how do you propose doing this? 

A: In Switzerland, the country is full of deep valleys and high mountains and many communities used to be very remote. So organisations in Switzerland created a mobile solution, a van or bus which came to the communities with all sorts of things from shops to libraries, you name it. We will use the same idea and have a fully equipped mobile training unit which will be able to offer training to local communities in villages, for instance, and thus take out the cost of travel and the pressures of young people being away from home. We will bring the school to them and rent local premises or even do courses outdoors, weather permitting. 

Q: How will you conduct your training programs to the village youth who do not speak or understand English? 

A: First an English course. Then we’ll take the next step.

Q: What would be the average price of a program? 

A: An exceptionally solid certificate program with full Swiss certification will be Rs. 70-75,000. 

Q: Would you give out scholarships to deserving students? 

A: This is a great question, but may I respond to it controversially? In my view, this would be the wrong approach at the moment in Sri Lanka: We have seen waves of donor organisations come here and provide all sorts of free education and support initiatives, which have been very generous intended, but, in my view, are not long-term solutions which address the dignity of Sri Lankans. 

For a start people do not value what is free, furthermore, it is tremendously gratifying to have invested in one’s own education and to have taken responsibility for one’s own future. Lee Kuan Yew once said that Singaporeans had more dignity than to accept tips from foreigners and I would like to expand that theme to education. What we invest in ourselves we value more; and the output is more valuable to the industry. Many people have attended donor financed programs in Sri Lanka without the right attitude, because it was for free. 

Sri Lankans, in my view, deserve better choices. Freebies aren´t choices. What we will provide are financing opportunities, so that anyone can access education. It is a shame today that people in remote villages in Sri Lanka have been known to pay up to $ 25,000 to illegally access jobs in Europe, perhaps $ 3,000 for jobs in the Middle East. But these are huge sums of money, sums education with bright career options will never cost. People should have a chance to spend far less for a good education with lifetime career opportunities. Investing in education should be the choice people have, instead of going uneducated for a menial job abroad.

Q: Would you be looking at opening more institutes across the island? 

A: We plan to be present across the country in due course – not only with our mobile units, but also with premises.

Q: As someone so well versed in the best practices of the travel and tourism industries, what is your analysis of Sri Lanka’s present and future status/potential? 

A: Another great question, which also deserves a thorough answer, so please bear with me while I get to the point: 

Sri Lanka’s future lies in tourism; there is no question about that. But the blueprint for its future has to be in reconciling the needs and values of society with the demands of tourism. Sri Lanka is, in my view, the jewel in Asia’s crown, in terms of tourism: We have an amazing cultural heritage, a wonderful mix of religious and ethnic groups, an abundance of natural wonders on land and in the sea, but we have yet to learn to cherish what we have and not go down the route of many tourism developments across the globe that have led to cheap mass-market tourism, which, in the end, causes almost more damage than benefit, with significant problems and little money earned by the local population. 

Sri Lanka is a tourism destination for the educated and the appreciative. It is not cheap, and should not be so. In the long run Sri Lanka should focus on attracting the travellers who value and accept what the country stands for, including its people and its culture. 

This should not be a destination for shopping nor a destination for cheap beach holidays; rather it should be the best place to go in Asia and one of the best places in the world. Sri Lanka has so many riches for both body and soul, in such a beautiful and relatively small space. Sri Lanka is almost like a world in itself for the discerning traveller and is much, much more than a tiny island like Bali or a clogged tourism venue like Phuket can be. Those are islands, this is a nation. 

But we must go down the sustainable pathway and work to protect and develop our tourism assets with the local communities – this is a really serious issue today and we don’t have much time to address it. 

Sri Lanka has so much to offer but it is currently delivering well below its potential, both in the experience people get when they come here (which is obviously the major focus of the Swiss Institute) and in the way in which it is being branded and marketed. In simple terms, it is not being presented in the right way, in the right places to the right travellers. Most players in the tourism industry go for traditional solutions and tend to group Sri Lanka with other destinations that may not be the ideal locations to be seen alongside. 

We need to differentiate Sri Lanka from other destinations and create a magic and a cachet about it that makes it irresistible to the right audience. We need innovative approaches to attract the long-stay travellers who are thrilled by what Sri Lanka is about. And, as touched on above, we also need to improve our tourism assets, which could be the subject of an entire discussion in its own right!

In a nutshell, with the right decisions and actions, the future for the tourism industry and for Sri Lanka itself is exciting and should be fantastic.

Q: With regard to the banking industry, what programs will you be conducting? Will the focus of the institute be skewed more towards the banking or the tourist industry? 

A: We will focus equally on both but each in their own way, as the needs of the two industries are different:

The tourism industry is suffering from a lack of qualified staff at all levels and, in fact, suitable qualification frameworks, as the recent THINC conference on hospitality investment in February demonstrated.

The banking industry is changing, but does not suffer from the same demand issues the tourism industry has. Here we want to enable Sri Lanka and Sri Lankans, who have always been amongst the best financial industry specialists, to rise to the top of the world, where they belong.

Q: What will be your strategy to attract overseas students who have access to similar facilities in their countries, especially ‘first world’ nations? 

A: Today I would not make a distinction between first world and third world countries. The world has changed and continues to change rapidly. It is a very traditional model to speak of countries as being first world or third in the context of the digital age. African countries pioneered mobile phone-based e-commerce and payments ahead of Europe and the US. Former political distinctions make little sense today. Education can be anywhere provided it is of sufficient quality. 

Once we have made our mark on the industry in Sri Lanka, students from overseas will follow. The combination of cost and quality will be a real attraction. We are offering top notch Swiss education at a fraction of the price in Sri Lanka that it would cost in Switzerland. That, in itself, will be a major draw. Just imagine a six-star hotel at budget prices – this is what we are talking about. When the time comes, we will put in place the necessary infrastructure and communication for overseas students to attend. 

For example, we will need to start by setting up exchange program agreements between Sri Lanka and other countries to facilitate student exchanges and foreign students coming to Sri Lanka to study. However, this is further down the track, as the key priority is to focus first on Sri Lanka and enhance our people and everything they and the country has to offer.

Q: What is the biggest challenge you foresee in Sri Lanka? 

A: One challenge is, of course, finding good trainers with industry experience. Apart from that and the logistical challenges of being able to train and develop sufficient numbers of young people as swiftly as possible, I think the biggest challenge will be keeping the trained professionals in Sri Lanka. Let’s face it, salaries are still comparatively low in the hospitality industry today and people with some experience are already going abroad for work. 

This could become even more of a problem when they have not only experience, but are demonstrably well trained. However, it is a much better problem to have than not having trained staff in the first place!