Negative perception of hotel career has changed – CEO
by Sandra Sokial. Posted on October 28, 2011, Friday
KOTA KINABALU: Just about a decade ago, the hotel line was the least favoured career.
In fact, parents would discourage their children from working in hotels for fear of the negative perceptions and impressions from the community.
But of course, that has changed today. What used to be taboo is now one of the most demanding careers, and this is very much encouraged with the mushrooming of hotels and resorts, thanks to the booming tourism industry in Sabah.
And Asian Tourism Institute College (ATIC) chief executive officer Datuk Seri Panglima Wong Khen Thau believes that the Sabah Hospitality Fiesta (SHF) has played a big part to bring change to the public’s negative perception over the career in the hospitality industry.
“Just about 10 years ago, parents would stop their children from working in hotels and resorts because it was viewed as not a decent job. So we were thinking how we could change this perception and came up with the fiesta … we noticed that the level of acceptance changed after the first few events,” said Wong.
ATIC decided to hold an in-house competition for its students. But they soon realised that the programme was a good platform to introduce what hospitality was all about.
So in 1997, ATIC collaborated with several hotels in Sabah to organise the first SHF, which drew some 50 participants, mostly hoteliers.
Fast forward 14 years later, Wong was proud to announce that this year’s fiesta recorded the highest number of participants with over 200 people, comprising students, hoteliers and even individuals had signed up to take up the challenge.
Themed Flavours of Borneo, SHF is an annual event co-organised by the MAH Sabah/Labuan Chapter and the Asian Tourism International College (ATIC) with the objective of providing an opportunity and avenue for hoteliers and students from various education institutions to exhibit their tourism and hospitality related talents and skills in the spirit of competition.
The event which is listed as one of Sabah’s annual calendar of events, also aims to promote the hospitality and tourism industry in Sabah by strengthening and building relationships among all the players involved.
In view of the growing number of participation, the committee decided to organise the 14th SHF event within a span of three days, from October 28-30 at City Mall here.
Members of the public are invited to catch all the action as contestants battle out in bed-making, food and beverage themed table setting, fruit and vegetable carving, bartender flair cocktail and mocktail and Nescafe Tarik competitions.
“Apart from gaining the parents’ trust to allow their children to work in the hotel line, the competition has also done a lot of good things such as improving the quality of hoteliers. We believe this is a healthy sign as it helps to promote the growth of the tourism industry, raise its standard and standard of services. I dare to say that our standard today is comparable internationally.
“In fact the number of people choosing hospitality as a career has also improved. In the past, only school dropouts or those with low grades would come and work in the hotel, but today, even those with good grades are turning for interviews,” he said.
With all those training through the fiesta, Wong is confident that the standards of human capital in the tourism industry would improve.
“Human capital makes a difference. Even if we have a five or six star hotel, but with unskilled staff who offer poor services, our hotel will get the bad name. Therefore, it is important to provide training to all hoteliers so they would be able to perform well,” he said.
Asked on his future plans for the fiesta, Wong said they hoped to bring it to the highest level.
“From the very beginning, we always wanted to move to the next level. Initially, the fiesta was only done within the city area, then it grew to the state level, then we invited outstation participants from Sarawak and Brunei … our next target is to have it at the national level. We hope it will come true in within the next couple of years.
“Of course eventually we hope to have it at the international level,” said Wong.
