Time to upgrade HR in tourism

Following is the text of the Keynote Address by Chairman of the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka and Chairman of the Organising Committee of the Conference Anura Lokuhetty at the Institute of Hospitality AGM 2011:

It is with great pleasure I address you soon after the AGM of the Institute of Hospitality as the Chairman of the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka and the Chairman of the Organising Committee of the Conference. I am sure all the participants of the conference will agree that it was two very successful days focusing on the future of Sri Lanka Tourism.

The conference themed ‘Aligning the Hospitality Professionals to meet up with the Challenges in 2016’ was specially designed to create sufficient awareness amongst hospitality professionals to align their thought process to meet up with the demands of 2.5 million tourists by 2016.  The President setting this ambitious goal soon after eradicating terrorism clearly indicates that the Government believes that tourism has a major role to playing economic development. The President’s thinking has been proven correct when you look at the increase in arrivals for the last two years. The first four months of this year clearly indicate an increase of 42%. The tourism industry is reaping rich peace dividends today. We are glad to note that the country is talking of tourism with a positive attitude. In any newspaper today at least there is one article on tourism.

This great opportunity we have got after too many years should not be allowed to be passed without making maximum use of the same. As per some of the news reported recently, there is more than US$ 500 worth of foreign and local investment numbering 93 projects, which I presume is good news for the industry professionals.

Human resource factor

While the actual number of rooms required to meet the 2016 influx might vary somewhat depending on the market mix that is being targeted, the fact of the matter is that total direct and indirect employment in the tourism industry will easily surpass 800,000. Currently, only about 55,000 people are directly employed in the industry, while at least another 85,000 are indirectly employed. However, when we consider the informal sector, there could be at least another 20,000 employed, making the total number about 160,000.

Unlike in other industries, the informal sector serving the tourism industry is much larger, with a wide range of peripheral service providers such as guides, chauffeurs, ticketing agents, travel agents, transport providers, etc. who directly come in contact with the visitors and play an important role in the tourism industry. All the service providers, direct and indirect, in the tourism industry, have to be trained and developed to continue to retain the competitive edge in Sri Lanka Tourism.

Hence, while everyone is moving briskly around, trying to develop infrastructure and build more hotel rooms, the critical human resource factor is a major hidden issue that will soon expand into great crisis later on if not addressed properly and immediately. While building hotel rooms and infrastructure requires time, equally, training and development of proper staff for the emerging tourism industry also definitely takes a considerable time.

Conducting an orchestra

THASL Chairman Anura Lokuhetty

In the hotel industry, the job of the manager can be compared with a job of the conductor, whose job is to instruct and direct all of the various musicians to perform well together. But, before a conductor can direct a beautiful performance, all of the musicians should be able to play their instruments well. What kind of performance could we expect if the violinists or the flutists do not know how to play the violin or to read the music?

In the hospitality industry, for a manager to direct and shape the employee’s individual contributions into an efficient whole, he or she must first turn employees into competent workers who know how to do their jobs. Employees are the musicians in an orchestra that the members of the audience, the guests, have come to watch the performance. If employees are not skilled at their jobs, then the performance they give will get bad reviews.

Just as an orchestra can have a fine musical score from a great composer and still perform poorly because of incompetent musicians, a hotel too can have the finest standard recipes, service procedures and quality standards and still have dissatisfied guests because of poor employee performance.

This is why proper management of human resources is so important. No other industry provides so much contact between employees and customers and so many opportunities to either reinforce a positive experience or create a negative one.

Hospitality vs. service professionalism

Considering the competitive nature of today’s tourism industry, quality training together with professionalism of staff will have a major impact on the competitiveness of the destination. One major error that Sri Lankan tourism industry makes is confusing ‘hospitality’ with ‘service professionalism’.

While certainly, without a doubt, a warm smile is always welcome, the smile itself is not adequate in today’s competitive climate. Travellers expect high quality and efficient service standards, which no amount of ‘hospitality’ alone can substitute for. Therefore, hospitality today has to be tempered and augmented with good professionalism as well.

In the Sri Lankan context, training and development of the staff in the tourism industry is a complex task as it is not only job skills that need to be developed and inculcated, but professionalism and to do something to perfection has to be ‘taught’. The Sri Lankan way of feeling bad about saying ‘sorry’ and to accept ‘anything as good enough’ needs to be adequately addressed prior to any technical training to the staff.

In the developed countries, basic on-the-job skills training is the only input required for the staff, as in those countries’ culture itself is formulated around perfection. However, there is a large cultural division in what is comprehended as service quality in an affluent Western culture, compared with what the average Sri Lankan suburban and village population thinks.

This means that we have to often provide on-the job skills training in addition to other fundamental training in other aspects. On a positive note, our people are extremely hospitable, more than most others, which is an extremely positive advantage in comparison to most other tourist destinations.

‘Mediocre is acceptable’ mentality

The burden in human resource field in the tourism industry today is the ‘mediocre is acceptable’ mentality. Very often staff perform to less than perfection, accepting lower service levels and do not strive to deliver the best. This could be the result of the bad period we have undergone for almost three decades. As a result we were attracting lower standard of tourists to Sri Lanka, enhanced by the low rates we maintain to attract.

Another factor that needs to be considered is to bring more professionalism to the industry to overcome the cultural disadvantage on the quality ethic in our day-to-day work. Getting it right the first time is often not considered important and rework is often norm. Therefore, we have to bring in a new culture to the tourism industry by having more training programmes, not only in terms of technical aspects, but considering all aspects. We have to find methods to drive the importance of perfection into the minds of hotel employees.

In this endeavour, I am sure the Institute of Hospitality has a major role to play as the professional organisation in the hospitality industry, by conducting more professional development programmes all around Sri Lanka.

I believe it is a good time for the policymakers in education to give serious consideration to aligning the education system in this country to cater to the development of resources and identified industries that could really make a difference in developing the country’s economy. In this direction, it is required to change the perception of the society which considers only those employed in a few identified professions as professionals.

Developing the economy

We all know that the most suitable industry to develop Sri Lanka’s economy in a sustainable manner is the tourism industry. I don’t think there is any necessity for me to elaborate any further on this. In terms of the multiplier effect, it could really have a major impact on Sri Lankans. This will further avoid our beloved brothers, sisters, mothers, and fathers, sons and daughters from going abroad for unskilled jobs, thereby creating a major social enigma due to breaking up families.

Other major industries which are instrumental in earning much required foreign revenue would not be as sustainable as development of tourism in Sri Lanka, particularly due to the fact that in most of these industries 90% of the of raw materials are imported and the finished goods are exported.

Considering all this, we, the professionals in the industry, can be happy that we are in the most suitable industry for economic development of Sri Lanka. Having said this, I think it is our total responsibility, as industry professionals, to ensure that we do our part by getting more involved in training our own staff.

I wish and expect all industry professionals to take a serious note of the necessity of improving the human resource factor in the hotel industry by conducting more on-the-job training and making them aware of the competition that is faced by the industry.

In order to facilitate this requirement, we on our part, the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka, has been incorporated as a company named the Tourist Hotels Association of Sri Lanka. Now the Association has a full time CEO and we are in a position to assist the industry in their needs.

Finally, I wish to thank all the resource persons and participants who are present here today for encouraging and supporting the industry. I wish all of you a great evening.

Thank you.

Institute of Hospitality Sri Lanka International Group Chairman Roshan Perera (fifth from right) chairs the 19th Annual general Meeting of the Association. Colombo City Hotels President M. Shanthikumar, IH Sri Lanka Senior Vice Chairman Harsha Jayasinghe Past President prof. Chandi Jayawardena, Institute of Hospitality CEO Philippe Rossiter, Past Chairman and current President of Tourist Hotels Association Anura Lokuhetty, PATA Chairman Hiran Cooray are also present. Pix by Upul Abayasekara