In recent years, the Information Technology and Tourism sectors in Danang showed impressive growth, turned into the city’s spearhead economic sectors, and became of crucial importance in the overall economic structure of the city.
Hospitality education at DTU - Photo: Tan Luc
The impact of the Covid-19 pandemic, however, badly damaged the hospitality sector. Therefore high-quality human resources are now the main problem in the industry.
According to Mr Nguyen Quang Thanh, Director of the Danang Department of Information & Communications, the development of high-qualified human resources in IT are a duty and a highly meaningful breakthrough solution in the development of a smart city. The Department efficiently implemented training and retraining of human resources in IT at state agencies.
Danang currently has 38 IT training institutions, of which 20 are universities and colleges, and 18 are vocational high schools, vocational training centers, and informal training centers. In 2021, the total enrollment quota in IT in the city was over 6 thousand students, including about 4,500 at universities and colleges.
According to Dr Nguyen Duc Man, DTU International School Director, information technology is prevalent in almost all economic sectors - services, medicine, education, smart traffic. People working in IT are actively headhunted.
The training of information technology at DTU turned it into a trusted address supplying society with high-quality human resources in IT. In the fields of software and digital content, however, human resources don’t meet business requirements concerning either quantity or quality yet.
Information Technology education at DTU – Photo: Tan Luc
According to the Danang Department of Tourism, the impact of Covid-19 left almost 70% of people in Tourism unemployed. Most travel agiencies ceased operation during the two-year pandemic. Hotels ceased operations leading to lay-offs. Touristic sites kept only some managers and guards.
Now that visitor numbers are recovering but not yet stable, many businesses are not yet re-recruiting workers. The rate of recruitment is foreseen not to match the growth of visitor numbers in 2022. Furthermore, several other sectors attracted human resources away from hospitality, leaving the possibility of a lack of workers even after the hospitality sector recovers.
With the plan to welcome 3.5 million visitors staying overnight, the Danang hospitality sector needs 35 thousand people, more than double in the same period, to recover to pre-pandemic levels.
Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Anh, Chairman of the Danang Travel Association and Director of Omega Tours, said: “After a long period of inactivity, worker qualifications have fallen. Courses to supplement specialized and professional knowledge are therefore necessary for workers aiming at the high-end hospitality marker. We have a young and able working population, but travel businesses are still small-scale. Businesses need support to train human resources to develop into regional businesses of sufficient scale to lead the market and bring international tourists to Danang.”
According to DTU Hospitality & Tourism Institute Director Prof. Dr Lim Sang-taek, during the Covid-19 pandemic, the hospitality sector lost a lot of skilled workers. To prepare for growth, the city needs to bring all partners together, from the state to training institutions and businesses, for the recovery of high-quality human resources in hospitality. All can be done online, thus introducing the hospitality sector to smart tourism. This is smart experiences, smart services, smart transport, on a smart foundation. Before this, DTU opened a new major in Smart Tourism focusing on training smart tourism in Vietnam and creating high-quality human resources in hospitality steeped in the digital transformation.
At the workshop to discuss the post-Covid-19 development of high-quality human resources organized by the Tuoi Tre newspaper, the Danang Department of Information & Communications, and DTU on May 27, managing agencies raised the issue of a serious dearth of workers in the field.
(Media Center)