Development of tourism education and training for frontline workers in Thailand

Tourism in Thailand

Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in the world. With many new nations being introduced to the global arena, tourists from all over are seeing new sights and placed. In 2005, international tourist arrivals worldwide surpassed all expectations, exceeding 800 million, thus achieving an all-time record (WTO, 2005). More recently, tourism within Asia has also been increasing at a dramatic rate. Despite global trends which tended to lower tourist trust in various areas, more and more tourists are looking towards Asia for their vacation, thanks to increased effort and investment being placed in the context of the tourism industry. In this regard, the research shows that in Asia as a whole tourism grew 11% in 2010 (ETN 2011). In fact, many Asian nations have stood within the world's top tourist destinations in the recent years of 2010 and 2011. One of those top nations was Thailand. Thailand has also seen some impressive recent numbers, but still definitely has a number of issues which could be possibly affecting future tourist revenues.

Thailand has been an integral part of that explosion of international tourism. In fact, it was ranked as the 16th most popular nation for international tourist travel in 2004 (WTO, 2005). Despite the decline between the 2008 and 2009 years, Thailand has been showing constant signs of growth in the 2011-year. Recent reports from 2011 show that Thailand is expecting to surpass its goal for the year, and bring in record numbers of tourists to the region. The Bangkok Post (2011) reported that the Fiscal Policy Office of the Finance Ministry believes 19.5 million visitors will make a stop in Thailand, which far surpasses the previous target of 26.5 million. Top groups of visitors include those from China, Japan, Korea, Russia, India, the UK, Australia, the U.S.A., and Singapore (Karnjanatawe 2011). This creates a situation where tourism is an integral part in Thailand's GDP and annual income for its residents. Here, the research shows that 2009 statistics saw Thailand's tourism revenue consisting of 6.5% of the GDP (Horn 2010). This is, in fact, a massive portion of the overall GDP of the nation. Such high increase of the overall impact the tourism industry has within Thai economy reaffirms "the fact that tourism [is] the country's single largest foreign-exchange earner and a crucial component to its overall economic health," (Horn 2010).

Year

Number of Tourists Visiting Thailand

2011

19.5 million (expected)

2010

15.9 million (Department of Tourism 2011)

2009

14.1 million

2008

14.5 million

2007

14.4 million

2006

13.8 million

2005

11.5 million

Year

Thailand

Northeast Asia

Southeast Asia

2010

15.9 million (Department of Tourism 2011)

218 million (ETN 2011)

72 million (ETN 2011)

Still, there are several hurdles which have been continuing to hinder more tourists from visiting Thailand. First, the tsunami which hit Phuket, among other coastline areas of Thailand, created a negative tourist situation for the country by affecting most of the tourist attractions in Southern Thailand. This has been an ongoing trend for the past few years. From January to August 2005, the tourist arrivals handled at Bangkok International Airport dropped by 10.25% (TAT, 2005). Moreover the tsunami that hit the Thai coast left the resort areas in ruin for several years and frightened many of the potential tourists from visiting Thailand. This was just an early sign of trouble to come. In fact, later issues would begin to arise that further complicated the issue of drawing already worried tourists into Thailand.

In addition, the ongoing conflict in the southern portion of Thailand has also affected the Thai tourism industry. Rising gasoline prices and recent political chaos have become major deterrents for tourism in Thailand to hit its objective goals. The year 2010 saw Thailand break out into political struggle. A disgruntled public eventually witnessed a clash between government forces. In April 2010, 24 were killed and another 800 wounded in a struggle between Bangkok protesters and government soldiers (Horn 2010). This political tension in the region continued to flourish, essentially frightening off many potential tourists. As a result, the nation saw a loss of 5% of its projected GDP from tourism. In fact, local businesses closest to the protests sites were hit hardest, with very little occupancy rates during the period of tension. Even worse, the research reports that "more than 70 charter flights hauling tourists from China" were canceled (Horn 2010).

Yet, more recent political stability has once again begun to calm the nerves of potential visitors. Thus reports are claiming that "If Thailand can maintain political stability, the tourism industry will be one of the major sources of income for the country for the next three years," (Karnjanatawe 2011). The recent stability has corresponded with a continual growth in Thai tourism seen within the 2011-year. Despite even the setbacks of the SARS crisis and the Iraq war in 2003, visitor arrivals had rebounded by 2004 and have continued to remain strong (APEC, 2004). Additionally, global economic trends, mainly the recession much of the world has been experiencing, had kept tourism at a low for several years. Tourism in the country had seen a sharp decline in early 2009 and into 2009, but since later in that year tourism had been slowly increasing (TAT 2010).

Finally, current academic research does show that tourism workers in Thailand lack technological skills, knowledge, language competencies, and comprehensive training. Unfortunately, as of now, tourism education and training in Thailand seem to be major obstacles in attracting tourists and investments in Asia as a whole, along with Thailand in particular. In other words, a lack of human resources and the rigidity of the labor market to meet the various requirements of the tourist industry is a major constraint to tourism development in the region (Pichaichannarong, 2004). Even worse, the personnel within the tourism industry in the region seem to have an extremely limited focus, which is further keeping them from reaching their tourism goals. According to research conducted by the royal Thai Government (2005), the international service standards of Thai tourism employees are merely focused on the hotel industry, which accounts for the major income spending at around 30% annually. In fact, The Ministry of Tourism and Sports (2004) has expressed concerns with other tourism services such as tour guides, international and local transportation businesses, as well as souvenir and jewelry business. Yet, training is still desperately needed in all of these sectors to boost the Thai tourism industry.