Soft Skills

Man enough to handle it?

With the travel and tourism sector sizzling like never before, we seem to have stumbled upon a speed breaker - a lack of quality manpower and its retention, which is slowing down the momentum. By Andrea Lopez

The spurt in inbound and outbound travel figures has given the ministry of tourism and state tourism bodies a good reason to invest in manpower. But it is disheartening to note that in a country of over a billion people, the industry is experiencing a dearth in trained manpower to match industry requirements.

Sitikantha Mishra, director of Indian Institute of Tourism & Travel Management (IITTM) in Gwalior, says, "According to WTTC statistics, the travel and tourism sector in India would need an additional 2.7 million trained people in the next few years." If these figures are to be taken seriously, India falls far behind in matching up to expectations.

The current scenario

Contrary to what most people believe, India has a huge shortage of skilled manpower. The aviation industry, however seems to be coping with the situation far better in terms of cabin crew and ground handling staff. The shortage of pilots still looms menacingly over the industry, but the industry has managed fairly well in terms of staff for handling onboard services. The tourism industry on the other hand comes with problems of its own.

The number of people opting to work with travel agencies and tour operators are few, because of the weak salary structure. A popular opinion is that the job lacks scope for creativity. Kapil Kumar, chairperson and faculty for tourism studies at Indira Gandhi National Open University, says, "The current scenario in the country doesn't look very promising. To begin with, the Indian travel trade prefers to train its own people. They do not wish to hire students with degrees in travel and tourism because it would mean paying them higher wages. This acts as a primary deterrent for young people who might have given the career a thought." Moreover, with BPOs making their presence felt in the country, students are naturally lured by more lucrative job opportunities.

All guides - local, state and regional - work under state governments and are provided with licenses, unlike tour escorts who work with private tour operators and travel agents. In both cases, the wages offered are not high enough to make it a viable career option. Says Kumar, "If we talk about foreign degrees, a lesser number of students are considering pursuing travel and tourism related courses abroad because they cannot recover the amount they invest in the course." Moreover, the fact that these institutes lie concentrated in the metros doesn't work to the industry's advantage.

As has been reiterated time and again, the quality of India's supply of tour guides and escorts has been far from satisfactory. Their inability to converse in foreign languages puts them at a serious disadvantage. Moreover, with the 2010 Commonwealth Games around the corner, India has to pull up its socks and make sure it is prepared to handle the challenge. At the recently concluded IATO convention in New Delhi, a proposal emerged to equip tour guides and escorts with at least two foreign languages, so that more guides conversant in English, Chinese, Korean and Russian could be deputed.

Making them stay

As part of the 11th five-year plan, the human resource development ministry has constituted a separate committee on technical education in the country. The five IITTMs in the country are gearing up to offer training for tour guides and escorts. In addition, Andhra Pradesh will soon have India's first university for tourism and hospitality management.

Private institutes are also beginning to train students in foreign languages and design specialised courses for tour guides and escorts with a focus on etiquette and language enhancement. Sapna Gupta, founder and director of Air Hostess Academy (AHA) says, "With the upcoming Commonwealth Games, our courses on foreign languages have become very popular." But this will not ease the shortage of skilled manpower. Mishra points out that the only way to draw people and retain them is by offering competitive pay packages. "The starting wage levels in the hospitality and aviation sectors are marginally better that the tourism sector. We have to make efforts to make the industry more attractive for youngsters so that they want to stay on," he said.

Meanwhile, Kumar points out that the industry has to modernise itself if it wants to go forward. ," He says, "After an MBA in travel and tourism, a student should feel sufficiently empowered to pursue a career in the industry. We need to look at our neighbours and assess how they are doing things differently and making things work. India lacks a think-tank in tourism planning in terms of a marketing unit that keeps an eye on other players in the market."