Speed up training says TCT

BANGKOK, 9 April 2013: Tourism Council of Thailand has urged the new Tourism and Sports Minister, Somsak Phurisrisak, to concentrate on upgrading tourism’s human resources in the lead-up to the ASEAN Economic Community due to start December 2015.

TCT president, Piyaman Tejapaibul, said the council needs the tourism minister to follow up any projects approved by the  Office of the National Economic and Social Development Board’s Joint Public and Private Sector Consultative Committee to move the tourism industry forward.

“In addition, personnel skills in the hotel industry need to be improved. English skills have been identified as a priority. We need to train 100,000  employees a year over three years up from 50,000.”

Piyaman Tejapaibul

She noted that even though the Ministry of Labour’s Department of Skill Development approved the project, the budget had not been allocated to the council.

This is a standing problem that slows down various projects where government funds need to be allocated to kick-start programmes. On paper the projects gain the green light, but actual funds are not forth-coming or are delayed.

“What we need is quick approval for a training budget programme costing around Bt60 million annually to train tourism personal per year for a period of three years. We cannot keep delaying this project.”

The three-year programme was first mooted in 2011 and supposed to prepare tourism staff for the introduction of AEC, January 2015, covering three years from January 2012.

Even if the project is fast-tracked it is unlikely the council will receive funds before October, this year, when the  government’s new fiscal year begins. It will mean the training programmes will be  completed in September 2015 at the earliest, or could drift into 2016 after AEC is implemented.

The TCT president also urged the tourism ministry to urgently improve tourism development to keep pace with the country’s marketing activities.

“Today, the country’s infrastructure and facilities do not match the tourism volume. For instance, Phuket Airport has a capacity to receive 6 million passengers, but there are 9 million passengers using the airport causing congestion.”

She advised the government to come up with a management plan  to expand and make better use of airports across the country  and take the pressure off the main gateways.

There is an imbalance in passengers using the gateway Suvarnabhumi Airport and Bangkok’s second airport, Don Mueang that needs to be addressed to solve congestion, she said.

The controversy over the role of Don Mueang Airport has been revived with the OneWorld Alliance telling the Bangkok Post, last week, the country should concentrate on a single airport policy in the capital, claiming it is the preferred model for airlines worldwide.

But there are equally convincing arguments from those who favour two aviation gateways one of them being the need to take pressure off Suvarnabhumi, while an expansion projects gets underway that could take at least three years to complete.

IATA, OneWorld and even the Bangkok Airlines representatives have all batted for a single gateway airport in the Thai capital, but the same organisations omitted to issue a similar warning  to Japanese authorities when they  needed to reopen Tokyo’s original  Haneda Airport to take pressure off  an over-used Narita.

Sourced: TravelDailyNews