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hard to fathom the high level of unemployment among
tourism graduates.
Tourism management graduates face the biggest
issues. Those who do find employment generally work
for smaller hotels, hostels or restaurants, while high-
end hotels tend to employ foreign managers with
vastly higher salaries.
Making matters worse, people from surrounding
countries such as Malaysia, Indonesia and the Philip-
pines are increasingly coming to Vietnam to work in
the industry, raising competition.
Le Quoc Viet, general director of Hoteljob.vn, told
Timeout
that these foreign labourers are now preferred
to Vietnamese due to their professional and interna-
tional skills. They are all well schooled in tourism and
often have good practical experience and they usually
have a solid work ethic and do not dispute their salary.
Furthermore, their English is normally very good – a
key attribute for success.
Accoring to Ngo Quang Vinh, director of Danang’s
Culture and Sports, Tourism Department, the city will
soon need more than 30,000 staff for the tourism sec-
tor, but training institutes will only be able to meet
one fifth of that demand.
“This shortage will have negative effects on tour-
ism in our city,” said Huynh Tan Vinh, chairman of the
Danang Tourism Association.
THE CAUSES
For Viet, the ability and academic standard of
Vietnamese students are good, and may even be
higher than some other countries in the region. “They
are very dynamic, self-confident, and hardworking,
but rather weak in terms of communication skills,”
he said.
Also according to Viet, Vietnamese students are
studious and hardworking, but they lack good vo-
cational and occupational guidance. Moreover, they
know little about their future occupations and the
industry before taking exams, so some of them are
reluctant to learn.
Do Thi Hong Xoan, chairwoman of the Vietnam
Hotel Association, believes the quality of local staff is
not up to the requirements of interna-
tional hotel management. “The main
reason is that the training schemes
are heavy on theory, but they
lack practice. What’s more, the
theory books are out of date and unpractical. There are
many useless lessons during the courses. That’s why
graduates are poor in terms of communication , mar-
keting and foreign languages,” Xoan said.
Xoan also says that most senior managers of
hotels and restaurants are graduates of economics
and foreign trade universities and do not have any
tourism qualifications. As a result, travel companies
have to hold training courses themselves to educate
their newcomers.
Commenting on the out-of-date state of tourism
education, Do Dinh Cuong, director of Support Travel,
pointed out that vocational schools operate more ef-
fectively than tourism universities and colleges due
to their shorter theory courses and increased focus
on time spent as a trainee learning skills. However,
these schools do not educate senior staff, such as hotel
managers or guides, due to the state decree that only
university graduates may hold these positions.
Another factor is the paucity of cooperation be-
tween training units and businesses. “Schools and col-
leges meet many obstacles in placing their trainees
with travel agencies,” said Viet. Furthermore, he em-
phasizes that the weak English language skills of many
Vietnamese staff is a big problem which means many
are afraid of communicating – a major issue in an in-
dustry that is all about people.
LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL
“We have to narrow the gap between the de-
mands of employers and supply of schools with close
cooperation. Most importantly, we need to have clear
guidance for students in their jobs and facilitate stu-
dents to gain appropriate skills, not simply to study
management via textbooks,” says Viet, adding that
the focus needs to shift from knowledge and threory
to professional ethics.
“It is necessary to increase the time for practice in
universities to 80 per cent, while using an international
model and updated standards for training and educat-
ing instead of basing courses on teachers’ limited expe-
riences,” said Cuong.
Vinh argues that it is now time to operate ex-
perimental programs, make the theory courses shorter,
lower school fees and make practical courses longer.
“We need to see policies to improve the professional
standards and skills for staff,” he said.
Ngo Duc Ke, director of Hanoitourist, says that
each tourism business must focus on training and edu-
cating their own staff to improve the quality of services.
In recent years, many local vocational and training
centers have adopted the Professional Quality Standard
for Vietnam Tourism, which is fully supported by the
EU. In addition, new international hospitality educa-
tion programs and centres have opened, such as the
CitySmart Hospitality Education (CHE) Centre. These in-
ternational hospitality education institutions combine a
theoretical foundation with practical training for those
seeking to become future leaders in the culinary arts,
tourism and hospitality industry. With an internation-
ally renowned curriculum, highly qualified trainers and
state-of-the-art training facilities, such centers are com-
mitted to contributing to Vietnam’s hospitality industry
by developing a skilled labour force for the long term.
EDUCATION
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