Lure of remote work setup sending PH hotels short on staff

A local trade association of marketing and sales professionals warned of an ongoing “brain drain” in the hotel industry, which it blamed on current working trends and a big demand for such professionals overseas.

Hotel Sales and Marketing Association Philippines (HSMA) director for membership Agnes Pacis said this was a pain point for the hotel industry, which is still recovering from the pandemic that shut down many hotels and made thousands jobless.

She said there was a workforce shortage of about “25 percent,” which they need to fill up in order to keep up with the demands of the business. Occupancy rates in hotels breached 70 percent from January to August this year.

She said the industry was having a hard time luring workers. “[Business process outsourcing (BPO) companies] are taking them. Cruise liners overseas are taking them. And hotels overseas are taking them. Neighboring countries like Thailand, who are also supposed to be a hospitable lot, are taking [in] Filipinos,” she said.

She noted “work from home is an option in other industries,” which obviously was not in the hotel industry.

She said the deficiency was compounded by a low turnout of students enrolling in hotel management courses and related disciplines.

“The enrollment in (hotel, restaurant, and institution management) and tourism in most of the universities has been down,” Pacis said, adding they were resorting to on-the job-trainees to expand their pool of available talents.

The group said the industry was in need of personnel in sales and marketing and finance and engineering.

HSMA president Loleth So added they were implementing creative ways to repackage salaries and compensation benefits to attract more talents.

So said they were also doing recruitment campaigns to get more people to apply.

The HSMA chief said a marketing and sales position these days pays a P30,000 per month salary, excluding incentives and allowances, for new graduates,

“If we lower this, we cannot compete with BPOs. They are around this same level and even have bonuses,” she said. INQ