CEBU, Philippines - Representatives from the Malaysian Association of Hotels Training and Education Center, which represents over 700 starred hotels in Malaysia, with a total of 200,000 rooms, visited at least 10 colleges and universities in Cebu, including University of San Carlos, University of Southern Philippines Foundation, University of Cebu, University of San Jose Recoletos, among others to offer the internship program for tourism and hospitality students in Malaysia.
In an interview with MAHTEC general manager Sahak Ahmed, he said this is one of the preparations made by Malaysian hotels to prepare for the free-flow of manpower movement as soon as the ASEAN integration next year will be formalized.
Under the program, the schools will offer the OJT in Malaysia US$2,000 program fee, that will also cover transfers, board and lodging of students.
The internship program that will be managed by Axsel Management international SDn Bhd, also assures students to get allowance from their assigned hotels with at least US$300 to US$500 a month.
MAHTEC hopes to register at least 150 to 200 hospitality students from Cebu under the program, hinting high possibilities that interns may be absorbed by the hotels after the program.
Malaysia, well positioned through its effective tagline "Truly Asia", aims to hit 25 million tourist arrivals this year, and expects to add 50 more new four to five star hotels in thr next five years.
A US-certified hospitality training provider, MAHTEC had also touch based with other countries offering similar program, such as Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Laos.
At present, there are over 40 thousand foreigner workers in Malaysia's hospitality industry, mostly from Nepal, Bangladesh, Vietnam and the Philippines.
According to Sajeeb Vidyasagaran, AXSEL director for marketing, hotels in Malaysia recognized the Filipinos' exemplary skills in hospitality industry, with its natural warm disposition, English fluency and well-trained hospitality professionals.
Malaysia's hospitality industry requires nearly two personnel for every one hotel room or a ratio of .8 to 1 room. With over 200,000 rooms, excluding the 4,000 budget hotel accommodations, the industry employs roughly over 400,000 hospitality workers.
In Cebu, MAHTEC is partnering with Selrahco Management and Consultancy Services.
Earlier, tourism stakeholders in the Philippines called for a revamp in the tourism related educational system in order to improve its capacity to produce tourism professionals and stress its leadership in tourism initially in the ASEAN region.
"There is a need to review and revamp the technical working group in CHED [Commission on Higher Education]. You see, we are only producing college degree holders to housekeepers, waiters/waitresses, cashiers," said Network of Independent Travel Agencies (NITAS) president Robert Lim Joseph.
Joseph said the tourism schools or the current curriculum of the tourism related courses is no longer applicable to the fast evolving industry of tourism and that the free-flow of professionals in the ASEAN integration would also threaten the offering good employment opportunities to Filipinos here.
Joseph suggested that CHED should come up with standard curriculum for all tourism related courses like the Hotel, Restaurant Management (HRM), B.S. Tourism, among others to involve the private stakeholders to teach students, rather than depending mainly on the theories taught by non-tourism-practicing teachers.
Joseph said the Philippines is sending tourism professionals to be bartenders, kitchen helpers, food attendants abroad. Some graduates here end up in the call centers because of lack of capabilities to take good opportunities in the industry considered as becoming the "star" of the Philippine economy. (FREEMAN)