"Thirsty" for tourism human resources during peak season

Since the beginning of June, entering the peak summer tourist season, the number of tourists to Khanh Hoa has increased dramatically. Meanwhile, hotels, resorts, restaurants... have to "look for red eyes" to find human resources, especially room service staff, kitchen assistants, and waiters.

Hotels and restaurants are "thirsty" for staff.

Since the beginning of June, Empyrean Nha Trang Hotel has been continuously recruiting more workers to serve guests and events held at the hotel. Ms. Nguyen Thi Uyen Chi - General Manager of Empyrean Nha Trang Hotel said: “The hotel has a very large number of rooms. On peak days, when the rooms are full, the hotel needs about 4 more room attendants, and if there is a gala dinner, 2 more party service staff are needed. Finding staff during peak season is very difficult, and sometimes even when we recruit, the workers lack skills. Therefore, we have to encourage employees to work overtime during this period…” Similarly, Ms. Phan Thi Quynh Ngan - General Manager of Nha Trang Horizon Hotel said that Khanh Hoa is a very attractive tourist destination; because 3-5 star hotels are almost running at full capacity, all hotels are “thirsty” for workers. Finding skilled workers during peak season is difficult, so hotels and resorts have to hire workers on a daily basis, but the quality of these workers is uneven.

Sheraton Nha Trang Hotel's chef (right) prepares buffet to serve guests.

Hotels and resorts in Bai Dai area (where room occupancy is very high) are also in great need of personnel, especially housekeeping and kitchen staff. Due to the high demand, the price of day laborers has increased compared to previous years, ranging from VND270,000 to VND350,000 per shift (8 hours). Ms. Nguyen Thi Trang - Head of Human Resources Department of Alma Resort said: "During peak times of the year, Alma Resort needs about 200 day laborers per month, mainly in housekeeping, kitchen and food service - departments with high work intensity and requiring flexibility to serve a large number of guests. Currently, not only Alma but most hotels and resorts in the area need a large number of seasonal workers, leading to significant competition for this labor source".

Not only the accommodation sector, restaurants also face many difficulties in recruiting human resources. Mr. Huynh Phuoc Sang - investor of the Bep Xua restaurant chain said: "Recently, the company needed to recruit restaurant managers and sales staff but could not find any". Similarly, Nha Trang Xua Craft Village also continuously posted recruitment posts on its fanpage but still could not find enough necessary personnel. "The craft village is expanding, the number of visitors is increasing, so we need about 30 more employees to work in the business areas, in charge of workshop activities, kitchen assistants, service... Since the beginning of the year, we have continuously posted recruitment posts and accepted probationary jobs but have only recruited 40%", said Ms. Nguyen Thi Ngoc Anh - General Manager of Nha Trang Xua Craft Village.

Need human resource management strategy

Currently, the province has 1,441 tourist accommodation establishments with more than 70,500 rooms. Of these, 111 establishments with 28,296 rooms are recognized as meeting 3-5 star standards, accounting for more than 40% of the total number of rooms in the province; the remaining establishments have quite good service quality but have not yet completed the assessment procedures for classification (not required). The shortage of human resources in the hotel sector has occurred during the peak of the summer tourist season in previous years, this year, the shortage is even more serious due to the explosion in the number of accommodation rooms and tourists coming to Khanh Hoa . "The number of tourists to Khanh Hoa has increased dramatically, while many employees working in the tourism industry who have changed jobs since the Covid-19 outbreak have not returned, and the number of newly trained employees has not kept up with demand. Furthermore, due to the seasonal nature of tourism, hotels and resorts always need more permanent workers during peak days. The work pressure is high, the seasonal nature, and the income is not too high, so not everyone accepts to work," said Mr. Nguyen Bao Truong - CEO of Regalia Gold Hotel, Chairman of Khanh Hoa Room Club.

Staff serve guests dinner at Ana Mandara Cam Ranh Resort.

In the Resolution on double-digit economic growth for the period 2025 - 2030, the goal is that by 2030 Khanh Hoa will have 100,000 tourist accommodation rooms, of which about 75% will be of 3-5 star quality standards; the total number of visitors will reach 20.5 million, of which 10.5 million will be international visitors. In the coming time, Khanh Hoa tourism industry will need a huge workforce. Therefore, the industry needs a strategy to develop and improve the quality of tourism human resources, contributing to improving service quality, towards sustainable development.

According to Mr. Pham Minh Nhut - Chairman of Nha Trang - Khanh Hoa Tourism Association, the shortage of human resources in the hotel sector is a very big problem, to solve it requires the cooperation of many sectors and units. The Association will coordinate with the Department of Culture, Sports and Tourism to provide advice and recommendations to the province. Thereby, finding solutions to expand and improve the quality of human resource training for the province's tourism industry. However, to solve this problem, hotels and resorts need great initiative. In the immediate future, businesses need to improve their remuneration to attract workers; strengthen coordination with schools in human resource training, including ordering schools to open training classes and train human resources to be ready to welcome a large number of visitors to Khanh Hoa.

Many hotels and resorts in Khanh Hoa are facing a shortage of housekeeping staff.

In the process of building the Khanh Hoa Tourism Development Strategy for the period 2025 - 2030, with a vision to 2045, Gratiya Company (a consulting unit from Dubai, UAE) surveyed and concluded that the human resources of Khanh Hoa's tourism industry are both lacking and weak. Gratiya Company's experts proposed that, in the immediate future, Khanh Hoa needs to improve foreign language skills for those working in the tourism industry and related services; foster and improve communication skills so that tourists can feel the friendliness of Khanh Hoa people. In the long term, Khanh Hoa needs to build a tourism human resource management strategy, including forecasting tourism human resource needs, building a training framework, training plans, and effective solutions to improve the quality of human resource training.

XUAN THANH

Source: https://baokhanhhoa.vn/du-lich/202507/khat-nhan-luc-du-lich-mua-cao-diem-1f06f94/