ABSTRACT:
This paper analyzes achievements of Lao People's Democratic Republic (Lao PDR) in training and fostering human resources in the tourism economic development. Based on the paper’s findings, some solutions are proposed to improve the effectiveness of human resources training in the tourism economic development of Lao PDR in the coming time.
Keywords: human factors, training, fostering, tourism, Lao People's Democratic Republic.
1. Human resource training in the development of the tourism economy in Lao PDR
Important achievements in human resource training and upskilling in the development of the tourism economy in Lao PDR can be seen as follows:
- Training
- Tourism training: To promote the growth of the tourism economy, Lao PDR has paid much interest in tourism human resource training for tourism development. In the Tourism Strategy of the 2006-2020 period, the country encouraged high school graduates and the young to take training courses in vocational schools at central and local levels. As a result, there is an average number of 20,000 people completing vocational training courses every year, mainly in three areas: tourism, hospitality and cooking. These training programs provide them with knowledge, skills and practice to enhance their working ability in the tourism economy.
- Tour guide training: The National Tour Guide Training Program has been implemented by the Institute of Mass Media, Culture and Tourism, National University of Laos and related ministries in coordination with other countries under the support of the Government. As a result, 1,366 people have completed the ASEAN framework based training program. Being developed in consistent with the tourism context of the provinces and the 3-Build Strategy (samxang), the program identifies professional ethics and inspires passion and love for jobs in the tourism economy.
- Human resource training of businesses: To the increase in the number of international tourists to Laos, the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism in collaboration with the Institute of Mass Media, Culture and Tourism launched a human resource training program for tourism businesses in order to provide them knowledge and strengthen capacity for their human resource, thereby helped them make a better plan to approach international tourism markets and know how to adapt their products and services to better meet the needs of international tourists.
- Tourism officials training: In order to facilitate the development of the country's tourism economy, it is a must to have competent managers. Therefore, a number of officials are sent to domestic and overseas training courses every year to strengthen their capacity and update knowledge of the tourism economy. Since 2016, 327 officials have been trained, of which 213 people were trained domestically and 114 were trained abroad at all academic levels from undergraduate to doctorate including 33 doctors, 129 masters, 155 bachelors and 10 associates.
- Upskilling
- Upskilling for employees: Tourism is an interdisciplinary industry with general characteristics and makes indirect impacts on others. To promote the tourism economy, it is necessary to upskill human resources of the tourism and service industry in particular and other industries in general. Since 2013, the number of trained employees in the tourism - service industry has always been the highest in the country and reached a total of 198,458, of which there are 108,779 female staff accounting for 43.65% compared with the total of 23,506 including 52,918 female employees in the industry sector, accounting for 27.2%; and the total of 132,624 including 60,622 female employees in the agricultural sector.
- Upskilling for tourism trainers: Tourism trainers play an important role in training as well as promoting human resources in the tourism by teaching and practical guidance. Every year, 32 trainers of tourism and hospitality from 17 vocational schools and colleges are provided training courses on advanced tourism skills through a 4-week field trip at the Lao National Institute of Tourism and Hospitality (LANITH). The program equips them with crucial theoretical and practical knowledge and skills to enhance the quality of tourism and hospitality training, which helps to bridge the gap between current teaching practices and the standards of the ASEAN Common Competency Standards for Tourism Professional.
In addition, with the effort to promote tourism economy oriented by the Government of Lao PDR, the Lao Institute of Mass Media, Culture and Tourism has strengthened the training of tourism trainers to improve the professionalism in the hospitality and tourism industry through the ASEAN National Tour Guide Training Program. This 10 day program started in 2012 and annually involves 80 trainers coming from vocational schools, Skills Development Center and Vocational Education Development Institute in Laos. It helps standardize professional competencies for tourism trainers, upgrade professional skills for ASEAN tourism trainers and evaluators, equip them with skills and knowledge to standardize services by global standards. This will be an important milestone for Lao PDR's integration into ASEAN and a key driving force for the tourism economic growth in the country.
In order to have strong human resources, the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism in coordination with the Ministry of Labor and Social Welfare and the Ministry of Education organize upskilling courses on tourism and hospitality management skills for tourism trainers all over the country, in which they learn theory in Laos and conduct a study tour for practice in Singapore. These courses contribute to the sustainable development of the workforce through successive training at a ratio of 1:3 - it means 1 upskilled trainers will conduct training to 3 others through a series of sharing workshops afterwards. As a result, 120 principal trainers have been successfully upskilled and 300 others have been indirectly tought through the sharing workshops.
Upskilling for human resources of provincial tourism businesses and associations: In recent years, Lao PDR has implemented the Tourism Skill Project, which is one of the largest annual trainings on human resources for tourism businesses. The project aims to promote sustainable and comprehensive growth of the tourism and hospitality industry, contributing to the development of tourism and hospitality skills as well as poverty alleviation by involving disadvantaged people so that they can successfully find a stable job or pursue further studies in tourism and hospitality. It focuses on improving the quality of vocational education and programs on tourism and hospitality skills by expanding the scale and variety of supporting programs on governance, policies, institutions and regulations for vocational education and skill development in the tourism and hospitality sector. The project has helped to strengthen tourism and hospitality skills for 1,700 employees from 700 businesses and 8 hospitality associations, of which the number of female employees accounts for 47%.
- Upskilling for human resources of the tourism sector: The Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism pays much concern on improving its employees' knowledge on various fields such as tourism communication, tourism economy, personnel training, English language, tourism marketing, food safety and services, personality and communication skills, etiquettes and decoration. Training is also conducted through 210 domestic and overseas workshops with the participation of 7,950 employees so far, of which 85 workshops on personnel training with the participation of 4,250 employees; 50 workshops on food safety services involving 1,000 employees; other issues are at an average of 10 workshops with 300 employees involved.
- Upskilling for tourism managers: In addition to human resource training, the Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism has greatly focused on human resource upskilling. There have been 105 upskilling courses on politics - administration, journalism, mass media, cultural management and tourism management with the participation of 4,725 officials of the Ministry at the central and local levels. The courses provide the Ministry's officials with knowledge and skills and enable them to contribute more to the development of the tourism economy in the Lao PDR.
2. Shortcomings
- The institutions' training methods are out of date. Foreign language ability, soft skills especially communication skills of students after graduation are still far from requirements of international tourism organizations. A lot of tour guide training courses have been conducted. However, the training time and contents are not suitable enough. Consequently, trainees do not have deep knowledge of Laos culture, history and people, which leads to ineffective guide and presentations to tourists. In addition, there is an inappropriate distribution of labor among sectors and regions. The workforces in tourism businesses remain inadequate in number and poor in competency. Human resource training in the tourism sector in the localities has not been really appreciated. It is still not consistent with the needs of management and the development of society especially in the context of Industry 4.0.
- Human resource upskilling in tourism businesses and associations in the provinces are not quite effective. The time and content are not appropriate and trainees are not fully engaged in learning activities. Besides, upskilling courses for tourism trainers are not successful enough to make big changes in the trainers' knowledge, training methods as well as practical experience so that they can improve their teaching quality in universities and vocational schools.
Tourism human resouce upskilling has been conducted mainly in the central level and localities which are famous for tourism sites, not potential ones. Therefore, it does not make enough good impacts to improve the management of human resource development as well as the development of tourism economy in the localities.
Causes of these shortcomings can be seen as follows:
Firstly, the awareness and actions of all government levels and agencies. Although human resource training and upskilling are supposed crucial to promote the human factor in the development of the tourism economy, there are still no proper plans on human resource training in the tourism - service industry.
Secondly, the system of education and training is still far from practical requirements. Education and training of human resources in the tourism economy is not yet closely linked to practice and has not been able to meet the needs of the market. The training content mainly focuses on theory while practice frequency is not effective enough to meet the requirements of human resource quality improvement. Poor facilities and equipment make human resource training by modern methods ineffective.
Finally, the investment mobilization for development of vocational training institutions is limited. At the present, an essential factor for the tourism economy of Laos is to develop competence of young people and create jobs with stable income for them. Therefore, it is important that the training system be planned, built and operated in a synchronous manner. However, the mobilization of public and private resources to develop the quantity and quality of the human resource is still limited. The investment mobilization for the development of infrastructure, tourism trainers and experts remains inadequate in quantity and poor in quality. There haven't been appropriate guidelines and policies on employing graduates.
3. Solutions for improvement of human resource training in the development of the tourism economy in Lao PDR
Human resource training is one of the determinants for the development of the tourism economy. Therefore, in order to improve the effectiveness of human resource training in the development of the tourism economy in Lao PDR, the following solutions should be taken into account, speciffically:
Firstly, in order to build a solid foundation for the tourism economy, it is crucial to provide communication on tourism and integrate tourism training into education at high schools to help the last year students to understand and determine their future careers. For training institutions and vocational schools, it is necessary to provide more practical, diverse and quality training programs for learners, especially adults. In addition, there should be a clear orientation in these courses to conduct specilized human resource training for different types of the tourism economy. Promoting cooperation with tourism businesses is also of importance to enable learners to take a long-term internship period in batches so that they can link their provided knowledge with practice. It is all of these which make tourism human resource training effective and help learners to identify current demands, trends and oppoturnities, thereby strive to strengthen their competence and skills to meet them.
Whether the human factor in the development of tourism economy can be brought into full play depends on the content of the training programs. Therefore, training institutions need to develop socio-economic development-based training as well as short and long-term training courses. Besides, the factors such as physical strength, competence and determination education should be considered in the design of training programs and closely link together to help develop a high-quality workforce for the development of the tourism economy.
In order to promote the human factor in the development of the tourism economy, it is necessary to enhance various joint training to prevent spontaneity in human resource training due to particular needs of businesses. And it is important to build a close linkage between the State, training institutions and employers to facilitate human resource training for the development of the tourism economy.
Secondly, in order for the tourism economy to develop commensurately with its potential and conditions, it is crucial to value human resource upskilling by providing them with proper knowledge and skills to increase competitiveness in the current changing tourism environment including state management, corporate governance, professional skills, communication and presentation skills, foreign language ability and professional ethics in tourism. There should be more short training courses to improve the quality and effectiveness of human resources in the development of the tourism economy. The Ministry of Information, Culture and Tourism should encourage tourism businesses to pay more attention to organizing upskilling courses for their own staff, develop human resource training programs and mobilize participation of other organizations in the training.
Possessing the strength of geography, people's hospitality, and natural landscapes that mostly stay untouched by the human, Lao PDR is expected to witness a rapid development in community tourism and nature friendly tourism in the coming time. The workforce involved in the tourism economy will be not only professionally trained staff but also the people in the tourism areas. Therefore, it is also important to conduct upskilling in home stay tourism, tourism security and safety, traditional cuisine services, traditional culture advertisement and marketing, and finance management in tourism. Financial management in tourism activities. These upskilling courses will enable participants to assess tourism strengths for effective implementation of tourism business.
Finally, expansion of international cooperation in tourism training with ASEAN member countries. The symbiotic relationship in the tourism development between Lao PDR and its neighboring countries as well as other countries in the region demands good coordination in tourism training between ASEAN member states, which helps to innovate the training system and implement the Mutual Recognition Agreement on the tourism profession within the ASEAN. The goal of tourism human resource training is to ensure not only adequate quantity but also professionalism to improve competitiveness and promote the integration in tourism in the region.
In addition, international cooperation in tourism training between ASEAN member countries also requires assessments of human resource development issues for better implementation of the tourism economy in order to help Lao PDR to integrate into as well as gain benefits from the ASEAN Economic Community. This also helps the country to have better approach to researches, current situations, needs and development trends of the tourism economy so as to develop draft policies on the development of the tourism economy and tourism human resources in association with specific characteristics of tourism businesses.
REFERENCES:
- Feature Desk (2020). Ministry to advance human resources for national development. Vientiane Times, 59, 12.
- Times Reporters (2019). 66 more tour guides join ranks of professionals. Vientiane Times, 2.
- Times Reporters (2020). Tourism businesses get lessons on ways to attract Chinese visitors. Vientiane Times, 02, 2.
- Times Reporters (2019). Tourism, hospitality teachers get lessons in restaurant operations. Vientiane Times.
- Phetphoxay Sengpaseuth (2019). Trainers get lessons in tourism management, hospitality. Vientiane Times, 6.
- Viengdavanh Banphahaksa (2019). 1,025 people undergo training in hospitality, tourism. Vientiane Times, Issue 276,
- Lao’s Ministry of Planning and Investment (2016). 8th five-year national socioeconomic development plan (2016-2020) (Officially approved at the VIIIth National Assembly’s Inaugural Session, 20-23 April 2016. Vientiane, 31.
Đào tạo, bồi dưỡng nhân tố con người trong phát triển kinh tế du lịch
tại Cộng hòa Dân chủ Nhân dân Lào
Khampheth Sengsoulattana
NCS. Học viện Chính trị Quốc gia Hồ Chí Minh
TÓM TẮT:
Bài viết phân tích thành tựu về đào tạo, bồi dưỡng nhân tố con người trong phát triển kinh tế du lịch ở Cộng hòa Dân chủ Nhân dân Lào (CHDCND Lào). Từ đó, đề xuất một số giải pháp nhằm nâng cao hiệu quả công tác đào tạo, bồi dưỡng nhân tố con người trong phát triển kinh tế du lịch ở nước CHDCND Lào trong giai đoạn tới.
Từ khóa: nhân tố con người, đào tạo, bồi dưỡng, du lịch, Cộng hòa Dân chủ Nhân dân Lào.
[Tạp chí Công Thương - Các kết quả nghiên cứu khoa học và ứng dụng công nghệ,
Số 16, tháng 7 năm 2021]
