Aside from tourism promotion activities, Da Nang’s tourism industry has also laid an emphasis on enhancing the quality of tourism services in a bid to attract more tourists to the city. Many training courses are regularly organised for human resources working in the hospitality industry, contributing to improving their skills and expertise.
An on-site training session of the Bac My An Da Nang JSC. Photo: Thu Ha
Focus on each customer market
A number of skill and professional courses are regularly organised by the tourism industry in coordination with related units for different positions such as directors, managers, owners of accommodation establishments, employees and tour guides.
Accordingly, the participants are introduced to solutions to attract and develop customer markets in hotel business activities; how to build service products to exploit key customer markets; and as well as behavioural and situation handling skills in welcoming and serving tourists.
According to tourism professionals, this is one of the effective solutions to develop and improve the quality of human resources in the city's hospitality industry.
Mr. Nguyen Quang Son, Country Director of the Global Tourism Development Organisation (GTDO) in Viet Nam, said that the current trend of tourists is to emphasise their experience at destinations. He, therefore, stressed the necessity for tourism businesses to expand the sharing of information about destinations rather than just focusing on introducing their facilities when seeking customers and advertising products.
He underlined that tourism businesses must look at their own reality with each customer market to build unique and attractive products, and learn specifically about the needs and tastes of the market to make it more convenient to approach.
In addition to choosing a new direction, businesses need to boldly update and implement new marketing trends in the hotel industry to attract and retain customers. It could be personalising experiences, telling brand stories or optimising online sales pages, he added.
Sharing his experience in serving and developing culinary products and services to exploit the Indian tourist market, Mr. Sai Raghupatruni who is Deputy Director of the Indovietholidays Company, said that India is a very potential market although there are many differences in terms of culture and culinary style. However, if those working in tourism services understand how to serve, prepare, and have well-trained staff, this market will bring in a fairly stable source of customers.
Mr. Sai Raghupatruni underlined a must do for tourism service providers to pay attention to issues related to food and drink, develop products suitable for customers' shopping preferences, and introduce products related to cultural festivals for customers to experience; as well as for tour guides to the way they convey information.
Tour guides are exchanging professional skills at a training course held in the city in early October. Photo: Thu Ha
Be more proactive in training human resources
Chairman of the Da Nang Hotel Association Nguyen Duc Quynh said that in addition to creating more products and organising events, the city's tourism industry and businesses are very interested in training human resources by regularly organising training courses to improve professional skills for staff.
The importance should be paid to inviting experts and experienced people to provide on-site training on improving professional skills for each position in businesses. This contributes to improving the professionalism of the tourism service industry, he added.
According to the municipal Department of Tourism, in the first 9 months of 2024, Da Nang had 56,135 people working in the hospitality industry, an increase of 10.7% (equivalent to 5,435 people) compared to the same period in 2023 and a rise of 28.7% (equivalent to 12,521 people) compared to the same period in 2019.
Deputy Director of the municipal Department of Tourism Nguyen Thi Hoai An said that in the context of the recovery and development of tourism industry, updating and equipping knowledge about market trends, building business strategies, and improving professional skills for human resources in the field are extremely necessary.
To develop human resources and improve the quality of tourism services in the city in 2024, the municipal Department of Tourism has issued and implemented Plan No. 106/KH-SDL dated April 26, 2024 on developing human resources and improving the quality of tourism services in the city.
Up to now, the department has organised 7 knowledge update classes for tour guides, 7 programmes on information exchange and solutions for attracting domestic and international tourist markets, and 6 seminars to exchange and share to improve professional skills for tourism human resources.
Also, heed has been on maintaining the e-learning website https://daotaodulichdanang.com/ with 19 online training courses.
Greater efforts have been made to coordinate with the municipal Tourism Association and its member associations to organise training programmes and activities for travel agencies and tour guides. Included are the programme "Offline 2024 - Connection for reaching far"; a job week in tourism, foreign languages, social sciences, and law at the Duy Tan University; and the annual job fair at the Dong A University.
The Department has also worked with Co Tu farmers in Tay Giang highlands to build a cooperation model to bring highland goods to Da Nang.
In the coming time, the unit will continue to set up a Code of tourism activities and a Code of serving tourists for tourism businesses and related units.
Reporting by Thu Ha - Translating by M.Dung