Tourism Work Force Development Funding Cut -- Pacific Business News

As a junior at Maui High School, Konrad Talon enrolled in the elective course Academy of Hospitality & Tourism simply to fulfill his graduation requirements.

Now, five years later, he’s a senior at the University of Hawaii School of Travel Industry Management, a summer intern with The Royal Hawaiian hotel, and strives to work his way to manager in what he hopes will be a long-term career in Hawaii’s hotel industry.

It’s a path he never envisioned he would take.

“I will admit, college was never an area of interest throughout my high-school career, nor was [it] a topic of discussion at our family dinner table,” he said. “I was determined to head straight into the work force right out of high school, as my parents did before me. However, during the final semester of my senior year, I had a change of heart. I saw the many opportunities within the industry, and I wanted to ensure I was prepared for the future.”

Talon, 23, is a member of the newest generation of Hawaii’s tourism work force — a segment that has seen relatively flat job growth in the recession despite representing the state’s main economic driver.

Hawaii’s leisure and hospitality industry employs approximately 101,200 people, according to the latest statistics from the U.S. Department of Labor.

But the total number of jobs is closer to 150,000 when factoring in other tourism-dependent industries such as retail, transportation, arts and entertainment.

Three years ago, the state commissioned a study of Hawaii’s visitor industry labor needs at a cost of $261,000 that essentially concluded that shortages in the work force were chronic and getting worse.

That study, called the Tourism Workforce Development Strategic Plan 2007-2015, laid out a number of short-, mid-, and long-range goals for increasing the supply of new workers, the rate of retention and expanding education, training, recruitment and work incentive programs specifically for the tourism industry.

“Unless work-force development is addressed in a comprehensive manner, service levels and quality could be adversely affected and lead to a decline in tourism,” the report said.

But those work-force development initiatives were put on hold following the global credit crisis and resulting recession.

The Hawaii Tourism Authority, which commissioned the UH T.I.M. School to do the study, had a budget of $250,000 for tourism work-force development initiatives in 2009.

Much of the money was used to lay the framework for implementing the strategic plan that included establishing the 16-member Tourism Workforce Advisory Council, hiring a tourism work-force coordinator at the T.I.M. School and launching a website called www.hitourismcareers.org to promote available jobs and training programs. It also was used to fund an expanded hospitality education for high-school students with the Academy of Hospitality and Tourism Program and the Hookipa Me Ke Aloha program, a Hawaiian hospitality and cultural training initiative, at Kapiolani Community College.

By 2010, that budget was reduced to $150,000 and subsequently put on “restriction” as the Hawaii Tourism Authority focused on short-term marketing initiatives to boost the state’s tourism numbers.

“With the tanking of the economy, a lot of the initiatives did get put on the back burner, but there’s resources still out there even if it’s just people talking and making the connection,” Lance Kimura, tourism work-force project coordinator at the UH T.I.M. School, told PBN. “We don’t want to be in a place where things are good and not have the training or education available. People are still tightening the leakage, but we can get those people at the table to figure out how we’re going to address this issue.”

It’s estimated that Hawaii tourism jobs will increase to 173,000 by 2014, and the retiring baby boomers in the years between now and then will create a work-force shortage.

Keith Vieira, senior vice president and director of operations for Starwood Hotels & Resorts, Hawaii and French Polynesia, predicts that hotels will see worker shortages among traditional blue-collar jobs, such as housekeeping, in the next five years.

“Our concern is down the road, because the parents who have these jobs now don’t necessarily see their children coming into these types of positions,” he said. “But taking into account the total wage-and-benefit package, these have been good careers for many people like those who haven’t had English as a first language or the educational background that would fill higher positions. They have done a great job of providing our customers a history and tradition of what is Hawaiian hospitality.”