Lack of Qualified Tourism Graduates Threaten Vietnam

Hanoi, Vietnam, July 24, 2009 --(PR.com)-- A shortage of qualified tourism workers are slowly pulling Vietnam’s tourism sector down according to a luxury travel operator in the country.

Luxury Travel Founder and CEO Pham Ha said there were several constraints on tourism training which hindered progression.

These included a lack of up-to-date facilities and equipment, limited practical skills of teachers and poor collaboration between training institutions and the industry.

“Four elements – occupational skills and knowledge, good service, foreign language skill and reasonable allocation of labor among areas – would be crucial to meet the critical demands of the tourism industry,” he said.

However, Pham’s company (www.LuxuryTravelVietnam.com) is currently facing a bunch of graduates which have none of the four elements.

Sales Manager Hung Nguyen said the company has to spend at least 6 months conducting on the job training courses for new staff.

“We spend the equivalent amount of time to inspect destinations in order to help them to become a truly legitimate luxury travel advisors and they are confident to sell our luxury tourism products to discriminating travellers.”

The company said that students from tourism schools are not qualified to work after graduating, with many having only a basic knowledge of tourism and lack of English skills.

“Vietnam’s tourism sector will be at risk of lagging far behind other regional countries’ and find it difficult to maintain a high growth rate if breakthrough measures are not taken to generate enough qualified personnel,” the company said.

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