Labor qualifications are among the lowest in the country.
At the workshop, Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan - Director of the Institute of Tourism Development Research (Vietnam National Administration of Tourism) - commented that currently, tourism development in the Mekong Delta region is not commensurate with its potential. One of the important reasons is that in terms of education, the level of trained labor in the Mekong Delta region is still one of the two lowest regions in the country.
First of all, the tourism human resources in the region are lacking in quantity and quality. According to statistics, untrained tourism human resources in the region account for about 51%; tourism expertise, soft skills and foreign language proficiency are still limited.
In addition, the effectiveness of tourism training is not high, most graduates do not have specialized skills, communication skills, and situation handling skills; the connection between training facilities, businesses and localities is limited; policies to support training of tourism human resources are inadequate...
Dr. Tran Huu Hiep - Vice President of the Mekong Delta Tourism Association - said that although recently, schools have opened many tourism training majors; businesses also focus on training and improving the capacity of their staff; however, in reality, there is still no mechanism and regional linkage models to develop regional tourism human resources that truly bring the best results.
“The recent connections between governments, through signing cooperation programs, including the development of tourism human resources, but mainly based on the “good relationship” between localities, are voluntary commitments, lacking legal responsibilities, so the effectiveness is not much,” said Dr. Hiep.
Long-term human resource development
To solve the problem of tourism human resources, Dr. Tran Huu Hiep proposed to establish a Mekong Delta Tourism Development Coordination Board to coordinate general tourism activities of the whole region, including a program to link the development of regional tourism human resources according to current tourism development needs.
At the same time, connecting the tourism market, tourist demand with tourist destinations, routes, tours, forming "Clusters - tourism industry clusters"; having regional programs to support training of tourism human resources with a focus, priority on developing foreign languages, indigenous tourism knowledge; promoting the application of science - technology and information technology in the tourism industry...
According to Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan, to develop tourism human resources, especially quality tourism human resources in the Mekong Delta, it is necessary to implement many synchronous solutions, focusing on improving training quality to meet output standards for tourism human resources; training institutions need to have reasonable remuneration mechanisms, foster and improve the professional qualifications and skills of lecturers.
In addition, strengthen the connection between training institutions, businesses and localities inside and outside the region in training and developing tourism human resources; have appropriate mechanisms and policies in developing quality tourism human resources....
"Humans are the decisive factor in all activities, and to carry out important goals and tasks to meet the needs of tourism development commensurate with its potential and advantages, the Mekong Delta needs to develop a program and plan for developing long-term quality tourism human resources, ensuring standards of expertise, skills in tourism services, qualifications... to be able to maximize potential as well as take advantage of favorable opportunities in new conditions", Dr. Nguyen Anh Tuan emphasized.
