Reply To:
Name - Reply Comment
Last Updated : 2024-04-26 02:12:00
On the eve before the staging of the first edition of the ‘Rising Star Awards’ to recognize outstanding young talent in the hospitality industry, the head of The Hotels Association of Sri Lanka (THASL) urged the government to take a closer look at the challenges faced by the hotel industry in attracting talent.
“The authorities concerned will need to take this matter as a serious threat to the tourism industry and will have to deep dive to understand the problem and find a lasting solution,” THASL President Sanath Ukwatte said.
He said that the government will have to get the basic framework right, so that the private sector too can invest in more hospitality training centres.
The Sri Lanka Institute of Hospitality and Management (SLITHM, formerly the Ceylon Hotel School) and its satellite schools have the biggest reach in the country in training workers for the industry. Ukwatte noted that SLITHM should partner with international hospitality training partners, and pay higher salaries to attract better lecturers, in order to give Sri Lankan youth a modern, international standard training.
Sri Lanka is aiming to attract high quality tourists, but in order to place a higher price on Sri Lankan hospitality services, the quality of service has to improve.
THASL is attempting to increase motivation of Sri Lanka’s youth to deliver higher service standards, and attract more youth for the industry, by staging the Rising Star Awards today.
“To overcome these challenges the private sector is trying its very best to be more productive with new initiative and have taken a bold step forward to enhance and invest in training employees,” Ukwatte noted.
Over 500 young applicants in the hospitality industry had applied for the awards, of whom, 27 will receive felicitations.
Ukwatte said that working in Sri Lankan hotels pays just as much as working in the Middle East, and that local hotels are interested in hiring local talent, before looking overseas in markets such as India, Cambodia and Nepal to hire labour.
Add comment
Comments will be edited (grammar, spelling and slang) and authorized at the discretion of Daily Mirror online. The website also has the right not to publish selected comments.
Reply To:
Name - Reply Comment
US authorities are currently reviewing the manifest of every cargo aboard MV
On March 26, a couple arriving from Thailand was arrested with 88 live animal
According to villagers from Naula-Moragolla out of 105 families 80 can afford
Is the situation in Sri Lanka so grim that locals harbour hope that they coul