Tourism executives in Oman are calling for talented workers to drive sector growth, but often they find their calls unanswered.
“We are in need of Omani men and women who are willing to work in the service industry and we offer training and development programmes for those fresh hands until they are groomed to be professionals,” said Mohammed al Shaqsi, director-human resources at Crowne Plaza Muscat.
“But the fact is that most of the freshers who have acquired sufficient training and development programmes tend to quit the sector to join other sectors,” he told the Oman Daily Observer.
Speaking at the open career fair for locals in hospitality industry by InterContinental Hotels Group, al Shaqsi said that channelling talent into the tourism sector was the “need of the hour”, and that the hospitality sector had numerous vacancies reserved for Omani national, but they are as yet unfilled.
“We need to initiate efforts to mobilise Omani workforce to hospitality sector and the ministries of tourism and manpower can make hotel jobs attractive and lucrative to the local workforce,” said al Shaqsi.
This is a major obstacle to Omanisation of the tourism sector, which is a part of a broader government objective to create more jobs for Oman nationals.
A major part of the problem is the lack of interest among the Omani youth who are eyeing jobs in oil and gas, ministries, banks and other attractive areas.
“We have as many as 13 openings in various sections in our property for Omanis but we are finding it difficult to get anyone ever since we opened earlier this year,” says Oppenheimer Pinto Fernandez, general manager at Holiday Inn Seeb.
“Many candidates are simply fresh and we need to give them substantial training and other orientation programmes to make them understand the sector, and we are willing to offer suitable training beginning with English and teach them the nitty gritties of servicing industry. But sadly enough, we are seeing less response,” he added.
Comments are closed.