Standardization of tourism education and training to address the increasing demand for tourism staff in the East Asia/pacific region

Abstract

Major travel and tourism organizations, including the World Tourism Organization (WTO) and the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), agree that tourism will continue to grow significantly throughout the next two decades, with the most prolific inbound and outbound growth occurring in that part of the world (Northeast and Southeast Asia) from which most East Asian Tourism Forum (EATOF) members are drawn. This paper argues that the limiting factor to successful growth is the availability of sufficient skilled staff, with appropriate technical and interpersonal skills, to enable tourism expansion to proceed without loss of service standards. Properly devised and adequately resourced education and training programmes are essential to provide such skilled staff. This paper will elaborate on some of the tourism growth statistics and related increases in staffing needs, and raise the idea of creating regional standards of education and training. Such regional standards could be used fundamentally to help destinations to ensure the quality of tourism staff. In addition, such regional schemes could be used for marketing purposes, to assure international visitors and travel organizers of the high standards available in those destinations.