Guyana needs a hospitality training school for fast-growing hotel sector: THAG Executive Director
Operating standards, zoning regulations also needed
Stabroek News
December 15, 2006
The Atlantic Inn (top) and the Sleep Inn, two of the country's recently constructed hotels. Will the growth of the accommodation sector witness more emphasis on service standards?
The current rapid expansion in Guyana's accommodation sector, particularly in Georgetown and its environs, brings into sharp focus the need for the creation of a regulatory framework to govern service standards in the industry. And according to Executive Director of the Tourism and Hospitality Association of Guyana (THAG) Maureen Paul while the recent growth of investment in hotels and guest houses bodes well for the country's tourism industry poor service standards could saddle the industry with a reputation that could seriously hurt its development.
Last week the Stabroek Business published a report on the recent completion or near completion of more than fourteen hotels in Georgetown and its environs and Paul said that this development had given rise to the need for "basic ground rules" to guide the operation of the accommodation sector. According to Paul the exponential increase in the number of hotels and guest houses being established in Guyana had created "overwhelming justification" for the creation of a modern hospitality training facility for service staff in the sector. She said that the onus for the establishment and efficient running of such an institution lay with both the Guyana Tourism Authority (GTA) and local hotel owners.
"Over the years we have paid too little attention to the need to train workers employed in the accommodation sector. In fact we have suffered from a taboo associated with jobs in the sector. Now that the relevance of those jobs to the tourism industry is becoming more and more apparent we find ourselves in a position where we lack the basic infrastructure to provide the quality of training necessary to support the industry" Paul said.
The THAG Executive Director noted that over the past ten years a number of frequent travellers were inclined to stay at smaller hotels in order to benefit from their intimacy and from more personalized service. She added that while the smaller hotels in Guyana suited the current trend in consumer taste high service standards were just as important to guests as intimacy.
Some time ago Stabroek Business learnt that guests in some of the city's hotels have made complaints to the GTA about the service standards including the quality of food being provided. GTA Executive Director Indira Anandjit told this newspaper then that the Authority could do not more than bring guest complaints to the attention of management. Paul said that the fact that the GTA appeared unable to take action that would lead to corrective measures was reflective of an absence of rules and the existence of an unregulated environment in which operators were under no great pressure to conform to high standards.
Some of the owners of new hotels with whom Stabroek Business spoke recently indicated that their operating procedures included training for staff. But according to Paul while in-house training was "a positive initiative" the training of hotel and guest house workers to meet the high standards required was "a specialized pursuit" that could not be accomplished solely through in-house training. She said that the current and ongoing expansion in the accommodation sector gave rise to the need to activate the idea that had been mooted some time ago for the transformation of the Carnegie School of Home Economics into a modern training facility that provided training in all of the different disciplines associated with running hotels and guest houses.
Meanwhile Paul said that "zoning questions" could arise out of the sheer number of hotels and guest houses being established in various parts of the city. She told Stabroek Business that the location of hotels gave rise to issues like the provision of parking and other facilities, and in the cases of residential areas, whether or not hotel activities would affect neighbouring residents.