Given the fact that direct interaction between local tourism workers and tourists will create a deep impression on their journey, building a professional tourism team will, therefore, contribute to improving the quality of services as they become local ‘ambassadors’ helping to spread the city’s culture to the world.

Tour guides are “ambassadors” who bring culture to the world. A tour guide is pictured explaining Cham culture to Japanese and South Korean tourists at the Da Nang Museum of Cham Sculpture. Photo: D.H.L

Doing a good job as the ‘soul’ of a tour or route

Tour guides are one of the specialised professions, requiring a wide range of knowledge and understanding and a ‘heart’ for the job. Since the start of the year, the Marble Mountains scenic relic site has welcomed more than 1 million visitors, showing that tour guides, and tourist site staff as a whole, have to do a relatively large amount of work.

Mr. Nguyen Van Hien, the Head of the Management Board of the Marble Mountains scenic relic site, said that the agency currently has more than 75 officers, employees and workers, including 7 tour guides mainly use English and Vietnamese in communications with visitors.

In fact, the tour guide team of the Management Board has been trained in in-depth professional knowledge, so the content they convey is often more complete and inspiring, thereby helping to more effectively introduce domestic and foreign friends the beauty of the Marble Mountains, especially ‘Ma Nhai’ (Inscriptions) at this relic site which has been recognised as a documentary heritage under the UNESCO Memory of the World for the Asia-Pacific Region Programme.

On the other hand, tourism activities also help local people express their love for the land where they have long been attached and do business. When they have a deep understanding of local culture and history, they will be the best ones to convey that content to visitors and become the soul of the tour and route.

As a Da Nang resident working in the tourism industry, Ms. Tran My Quyen, the Director of Thinh Minh An Company Limited, said that whenever a tour is inspirational, she personally acts as a tour guide because she wants to inspire tourists with her burning love for her homeland.

“Tour guides and narrators are the ones who evoke the heroic historical memories of the nation, about the priceless values of the land. Therefore, they must be local people. Anyone who has been to A1 Hill Dien Bien Phu or Quang Tri ancient citadel will shed tears of emotion when listening to the narrators here tell stories. I hope that visitors to Da Nang will also be filled with emotions when hearing stories about ancient relics such as Hai Chau communal house with the shade of a hundred-year-old Bodhi tree. Coming here, visitors have the opportunity to learn more about Kinh An Tu church - a place to worship 42 clans. Over the past 500 years, these clans have laid the foundation and continuously contributed to the formation of Da Nang today. The Hai Chau ancient communal house has always been a historical relic that has been worshiped and preserved by the local people. Or visitors can visit the ancestral temple of An Hai Village and Thoai Ngoc Hau, An Hai Tay Ward, Son Tra District in the late afternoon and listen to the story not only about the church of a large village with a long history in Da Nang, but also about a famous historical figure of An Hai hometown. That is Thoai Ngoc Hau - Nguyen Van Thoai, the legendary mandarin was one of the meritorious officials during the reign of Emperor Gia Long of the Nguyen Dynasty. Or, through the story of the tour guide, visitors can understand more about the courage and bravery of our ancestors through the heroic stories at the Dien Hai citadel; visitors can also feel the patriotism when visiting the Hoang Sa Exhibition House. I believe that only those who were born, grew up and love this land can be passionate about conveying that information to tourists," Ms. Quyen affirmed.

According to the Da Nang Tour Guide Association, the city currently has more than 4,100 members, including about 2,000 English-speaking tour guides. Although the number of Asian visitors to Viet Nam has increased in recent years, such as Japanese, Korean, Thai, Chinese, there is still no shortage of tour guides in these languages because there are many students graduating from universities specializing in foreign languages.

In particular, there is a shortage of German, Italian, Spanish tour guides because most of the tour guides speaking these languages are old, while the training demand at universities is not high, so they cannot meet the needs of the current tourism market.

Struggling to find skilled workers

Human resources are still one of the most worrying issues for many newly established travel companies. Ms. Nguyen Thanh Tinh, the Deputy Director of Sea Love International Travel Company Limited shared that to recruit people who can do the job, it takes a lot of time to train through practical work to meet the requirements. Every time recruiting personnel, there are many applications submitted but very few people meet the requirements. After accumulating experience, they change jobs, making the company passive in work.

Sharing the same concerns with Ms. Tinh, Mr. Nguyen Ngoc Anh, the Director of the OMEGA Tourism Service Trading Company Limited, said that the company often recruits personnel through two main streams: students and those with work experience. For students, the company gives them an internship for a period of time, then select the best candidates. However, this group is at high risk because they often change jobs. For those with work experience, they require high salaries. In particular, many people are familiar with the old rules and regulations of their old units, so conflicts easily arise during the working process when in a new environment.

Compared to other countries in the region, the quality of tourism human resources in Viet Nam, and in major tourism centres is still limited, which has significantly affected the creation of highly competitive tourism products. In particular, in the context of the Mutual Recognition Arrangements on Tourism Professionals (MRA-TP) allowing the movement of skilled tourism workers from other countries in ASEAN, foreign tourism workers in particular can have jobs in Viet Nam. Therefore, this fact can put local tourism workers at risk of losing their jobs at home if they do not improve their professional capacity and work attitude.

In reality, the city's tourism human resources often fluctuate due to two main reasons. That is due to the high demand for job-hopping because the rights of workers and business owners have not been met. Second, some are not professionally trained, affecting work efficiency and service quality.

In recent times, Da Nang has oriented its goal of exploiting the M.I.C.E. (Meetings, Incentives, Conferences, and Exhibitions) market. Although the infrastructure system, accommodation facilities and destinations have been invested; high-quality human resources have not yet met the needs of this high-end customer segment. Therefore, the city needs to build a systematic and long-term human resource training strategy right now to meet the development needs of the tourism industry in the future.

Reporting by DOAN HAO LUONG - Translating by A.THU