Development of tourism human resources

The experiences of last few years show the trained-up people of tourism and hospitality sector are comparatively quickly employed than those of other sectors of Bangladesh, Prof Ahasanullah, Head of Tourism Dept of IBAIS University viewed. The WTTC revealed in 2012 that about 1,281,500 people (1.8 per cent of total employment of the country) were directly and 2,714,500 people indirectly involved in the tourism sector of Bangladesh, which will reach 3,891,000 (i.e. about 4.3 per cent of total employment of the country) by 2023. It is not that all the people currently involved in tourism industry received formal training. At present, many young people are coming to this industry after having trainings from different tourism training institutes or obtaining formal degree in tourism from any university. Currently, in Bangladesh, as many as seven private universities and one public university offer BBA and MBA degrees in tourism. Apart from these, there are as many as six private tourism training institutes and one public institute (BPC) offer certificate and diploma courses in various disciplines of tourism and hospitality industry. These universities and institutes every year produce more than one thousand graduates. The yearly intake in these universities and institutes altogether is about seventeen hundreds, of which Dhaka University gets the lion's share. "Most of our trained-up students easily and quickly are employed at home and abroad specially in the Middle-East," A B M Ashraful Haque, Principal of BPC-run NHTTI informed.      
Though the numbers of BBA and MBA graduates are less in number than those of other departments of Dhaka University and in other private universities, the tourism and hospitality industry is yet to accommodate those all in the job. There exist many dilemmas in having jobs of the graduates in tourism and providing jobs by the stakeholders.
For the last couple of years, I have had interactions with many students of different universities and tourism training institutes. They are worried apprehend about their future plan, job opportunities at home and abroad and their career-plans. Among the students, some also expressed dissatisfaction and disappointment over condition of the present job market in the tourism sector of Bangladesh.
The stakeholders in tourism industry always ask for efficient manpower, but they are a bit reluctant to provide jobs to the graduates who obtained training on hospitality management. Whenever any tourism training institute or university makes requests for providing internship opportunity to its tourism students, the stakeholders show an indifferent attitude. On the other hand, when the students after finishing their study go to the stakeholders for jobs, they come back with utter frustration. Because they are offered very poor salary, which is sometimes lower than that of a garment worker.
Tourism is a very much industry-oriented subject. Academicians and the industry stakeholders must have coordination about the creation of human resources as well as employing this manpower. Unfortunately, we don't see that the relationship is warm enough to do so.
Once, a teacher of a private university who teaches tourism expressed his outright discontent before some stakeholders that his intern-students were not treated well during the internship. "I think this is not only the case of a single hotel," he said.
The persisting dilemma of the tourism industry is - the tourism training institutes and the universities believe that their students are quite capable of working in the tourism and hospitality industry. But the stakeholders are unwilling to agree to this opinion. The stakeholders want service-providing workforce i.e. who can work as bellman, waiter, cook, concierge, bartender, front desk staff, clerk, etc. It is quite natural for the students who have BBA and MBA in tourism from a renowned university that they will be unwilling to work directly as a waiter or concierge. Hence, they pursue other jobs like those in banks or a multinational company. They go far away to contribute to the tourism industry. Some of them remain in the tourism industry, who create own entrepreneurship or can join any renowned hotel or motel at least as a mid-level officer. Some of them also join private universities.
Thus, to welcome students with the tourism background to join the industry as efficient manpower, all the stakeholders have some roles to play and responsibilities to carry out as conscious citizens of the country. We can offer them at least 2-3 months' internship without any charge. We can also offer scholarships to the meritorious students for pursuing higher degrees. We can also organize regular seminars to help them make career plans in which area of the tourism and hospitality industry he or she can work. The industry people can also offer students with the BBA or MBA background to mid-level jobs in hotels, resorts or other related organizations. The students who have only trainings in one area or a diploma may be employed in service-providing level.
On the other hand, the training institutes and the universities may take initiatives themselves to build a good relationship with the industry people. Also, they can invite the tourism leaders on different occasions and at meetings. Some joint programmes can be arranged to chalk out plans and programmes with a view to creating and employing the tourism human resources in Bangladesh. The tourism training institutes and the universities may upgrade their syllabuses in consultation with the tourism stakeholders and as per the demands of the market. Through this continuous process, a win-win situation may take place in the country. And this win-win situation will help develop tourism industry in Bangladesh.  
The writer is tourism development activist, who works in BPC. [email protected]