Discuss about the Importance of Training in Tourism Industry.
This study discusses on training needs in the tourism sector in Australian economy. As tourism is of different kinds, training needs vary across different types of tourism units. This study considers tourism sector in Australian economy and training needs for employees for the growth of the sector. Australian tourism industry is currently facing skill deficiency in the tourism sector. This sector thus suffers from the labour shortage problem. Extensive research has been done in this area to analyse the requirement of training in the tourism sector for different staffs engaged in with different activities. Joppe (2012) discusses on training needs of the migrant workers, who engage themselves with the tourism sector.
Dhar (2015) tried to find out relationship between service quality in tourism sector and training of the employees. This research paper has considered three variables such as perceived accessibility of training, perceived support for training and perceived benefits from training in connection with the organisational commitment. These variables all together influence the service quality of a tourism organisation and travel agency. Cuffy, Tribe and Airey (2012) have examined needs for education and training for tourism in the Commonwealth of Dominica as education level and other variables affect the tourism sector. The present study tries to find out the causal relationship between training needs of the employees and impact of training on the tourism sector. The current study focuses on the training needs of the leading tour operator Australia one.
Australian tourism industry has a growing trend and hence, this sector requires skilled labour in order manage demand and satisfaction of both domestic and international tourists. Tourism is an important sector in the economy as it contributes significantly in the growth of the economy. The tourism industry employs 929000 people either directly or indirectly. In spite of that, there are currently 38,000 vacancies in this sector of Australia due to shortage of skilled labour (tourism.australia.com 2017). This sector suffers from immense difficulties in recruitment and employee retention. Employment of trained labour influences the performance of the chosen company as this strategy makes the company competitive. Different types of skills are required for the employees such as training for new employees, teaching business and managerial skills, effective interpersonal skills, training for technical and professional skills (Zaitseva, Goncharova & Androsenko, 2012). Therefore, this study seeks to analyse the effectiveness of employee training for the inbound tour operator Australia One and contribution in the growth of the revenue.
The purpose of the study is to find out requirements of training and development in the tourism sector focusing on the Australia One tour operator. This company is the leading inbound tour operator in Australia, which provides professional service and ensures effective communication with the customers. The present study aims to discuss on the effectiveness of the on existing job training programme provided by Australia One and requirements for improvement of training programme. The purpose of the study is also to evaluate the relationship between the service quality and the existing training programme provided by Australia One. The issues faced by the organisation during arranging training and development programme are also discussed here.
The research questions are based on purpose of the research and are formulated to support the research. The research questions are stated below.
What are the needs of training and development of employees in the tourism sector?
How training and development programme improves the skills of employees and profitability of the organization?
What challenges are faced by Australia One regarding recruitment and existing training process of employees?
What solutions can be recommended for Australia One for skill development of employees?
Hypothesis
H0: Employee training has no effect on the performance of the Australia One
H1: Employee training has significant positive effect on the performance of Australia One
Training and development activities in any organisation allow it to adapt, compete, innovate and improve service provided to the customers. Training also helps to reduce errors in high risk settings in the business. Students can join in tourism sector after high secondary or under graduate studies. However, training develops their skills to enhance business performance. Unskilled workers in the tourism sector reduce the service quality. Therefore, the tour operators tend to recruit skilled workers to meet the standard of predetermined service quality (Sigala & Chalkiti, 2014). Training in school or college provides knowledge in this field; however, practical guidance or on-job-training enhances effectiveness of the system and improve performance. Effective training can bring competitive advantage to the company. Therefore, Australia One has been chosen for the micro analysis and to show the importance of training in this sector. This study may help the organisation to improve its service quality, increase new clients and to increase profitability.
The study is related to the training needs for the employees of tourism sector. The study wants to identify the types of training that are required for a tourism organisation and especially for an inbound tourism operator. This chapter highlights the role of human resource management system in tour bound Operator Company. Human resource management has important role in diagnosing training needs of employees. Employee competencies are required for marketing of the tour products and services of the organisation.
The role of tour operator is to plan for tourists. The tour operator offers tour package for specific areas of travel industry. Different types of tour products are offered based on the geographical and cultural dimensions of the country. A tour operator needs to understand the nature of foreign currency, domestic culture and the culture of the tourists and languages. As stated by Taylor, Bogdan & DeVault (2015), a tour operator receives training from vocational schools or any training colleges for tour operator. High level of degree is not required for the employees of the tour operator company. However, in the view of Bronwyn (2014), with the growing needs of technology and demanding customers, effective customer employee relationship is required for the company. Moreover, environment is an important issue in the tourism sector. Competitive advantage depends on the skill of employees, who can effectively guide the customer. Professionalism, competitiveness, loyalty and soft skills are essential quality for the tour operators and other workers in the tourism industry. As mentioned by Cabiddu, Lui & Piccoli (2013), motivated workers are the most talented employees with excellent soft skills, who are able to communicate with the customers effectively. The tour operator needs to have quality such as adaptability, punctuality, disciplines and self-confidence while interacting with the customers. Training can enhance these skills, which are essential for respective organisation.
As discussed by Tarone, Gass & Cohen (2013), tour operators can be given in-house training. In-house training enhances the skills of existing employees required for jobs. This research has shown that employees respond to the in-house trainer in a better manner. Periodic in-house training organised in a group setting can teach communication, customer service, and technical and safety skills. A supervisor is the best person to recognise the training needs of the employees.
Baum (2015) mentioned for external training, which is arranged outside the organisation. Employees are sent for seminar arranged at other place or by other organisation. College course or seminar can be arranged for the training of the employees of the tourism sector and for the tour operators. External training provides new skills, creative ideas for better customer service from both from company and individual perspectives (Horng & Lin, 2013).
The human resource management has the responsibilities to understand the training needs of the employees. They have to be careful regarding time of employee selection and recruitment. The HR manager assesses the business needs and requirements of training keeping parity with the financial health of the organisation. HR department evaluates the training needs and types of training for each employee based on the training needs of individual staff. Feedback can be taken through customer survey. Management analyses the errors, complaints, the problems, and the service delivery (Dhiman, 2012). They therefore decide the needs of training. HR department needs to be careful at the time of hiring new employees. Emotional intelligence of the candidates needs to be judged, as this quality is very helpful in risk management in business.
HR departments often face the problems with employee retention. Bronwyn (2014) argued that training is not always effective as an employee may quit the organisation after receiving training. Therefore, employee satisfaction is needed to give priority while thinking about employee retention. The HR departments require assessing the suitable position of the employee in the organisation in order to use the skill of the employee effectively. Training promotes job satisfaction through better understanding of the role and career objectives. In the view of Cabiddu, Lui & Piccoli (2013), training is also essential for knowledge transfer. Spreading knowledge to other employees diversifies investment within sector.
Marketing is an important part of the business. A company indirectly communicates with the customers through marketing. Marketing highlights the features of the products in order to convince them. Marketing presents the company differently to the customers in order to set the company apart from competitors. Employees need to be efficient in this respect. Employees need to be efficient to use the marketing tools and techniques and communicating the strategy of the company with the tools. Employees require understanding the competitive needs, customer trends to use marketing effectively. As stated by Truong & Hall (2013), different formats of training are available for marketing in tourism sector. Different formats are one-to-one sessions, group workshops, and kick-start kits & toolkits and virtual learning. Training can be given promotion of business through social media, finding new target market, sales skills, increasing response rate from e marketing and direct mail, product development, better promotion of tourism place.
The research will be conducted through primary research. Effectiveness of training programme will be evaluated through recoding responses of the managers and employees of Australia One tour operator. Questionnaire will be formulated for data collection. Close-ended questions will be used in order to record the responses of employees. There will be some open-ended questions for the managers. Responses for close-ended questions will be used for quantitative study and open-ended questions will be used for qualitative studies. The primary survey may be conducted through face-to-face interview, online survey, sending questionnaire through mail (Mackey & Gass, 2015). Simple random sampling will be used while choosing the participants from the employees of Australia One Company. 55 Participants will be chosen randomly. Secondary sources will be used for the literature survey. Scholarly literatures will be used to analyse the facts and variables affecting the training and development programme in the tourism organisation. Online sources will be used as secondary study in order to get data on growth statistics of Australia One in the industry.
As the study will consider both qualitative and quantitative study, positivism philosophy will be appropriate for the study. Statistical methods will be used to analyse the data and to find out relationship among the variables. The excel workbook will be used to conduct regression analysis in order to ensure the significance of the study. As the primary survey may incur sampling error, regression analysis will ensure the significance of the variables in explaining the variability of the dependent variable (Flick, 2015). However, qualitative study will justify the acceptance and rejection of the hypothesis. Deductive methods will be used as the researcher aims to verify collected data through survey and ensure acceptance or rejection of the hypothesis based on recorded response. However, no new theory will be developed in this study.
The complete research work has following stages. The time schedule has been represented in the Gantt chart to show start and end date of every task. Total 5 months will be required to complete the project.
References
Baum, T. (Ed.). (2016). Human resource issues in international tourism. Elsevier.
Bronwyn, C. L. (2014). Training and Development for a Successful Tourism Industry in Newfoundland: A Literature Review.
Cabiddu, F., Lui, T. W., & Piccoli, G. (2013). Managing value co-creation in the tourism industry. Annals of Tourism Research, 42, 86-107.
Cuffy, V., Tribe, J. & Airey, D., (2012). Lifelong learning for tourism. Annals of Tourism Research, 39(3), pp.1402-1424
Dhar, R.L., (2015). Service quality and the training of employees: The mediating role of organizational commitment. Tourism Management, 46, pp.419-430.
Dhiman, M. C. (2012). Employers’ perceptions about tourism management employability skills. Anatolia, 23(3), 359-372.
Flick, U. (2015). Introducing research methodology: A beginner’s guide to doing a research project. Sage.
Horng, J.S. & Lin, L., (2013). Training needs assessment in a hotel using 360 degree feedback to develop competency-based training programs. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Management, 20, pp.61-67.
Joppe, M., (2012). Migrant workers: Challenges and opportunities in addressing tourism labour shortages. Tourism Management, 33(3), pp.662-671.
Mackey, A., & Gass, S. M. (2015). Second language research: Methodology and design. Routledge.
Sigala, M., & Chalkiti, K. (2014). Investigating the exploitation of web 2.0 for knowledge management in the Greek tourism industry: An utilisation–importance analysis. Computers in Human Behavior, 30, 800-812
Tarone, E. E., Gass, S. M., & Cohen, A. D. (2013). Research methodology in second-language acquisition. Routledge.
Taylor, S. J., Bogdan, R., & DeVault, M. (2015). Introduction to qualitative research methods: A guidebook and resource. John Wiley & Sons.
Zaitseva, N. A., Goncharova, I. V., & Androsenko, M. E. (2016). Necessity of changes in the system of hospitality industry and tourism training in terms of import substitution. International Journal of Economics and Financial Issues, 6(1).
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