Zheng Xiangmin: Now he takes the position of head of tourism in HuaQiao University, Superintendent of Tourism Science Research Institute and Research Institute in Fujian, Macao, Doctor Guide in the Tourism Corporate Management.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Hotel industry is the earliest industry that links with international standard and also the most mature industry with the largest space. At present, although there are a lot of local hoteliers actively taking part in the local or foreign-setup hotels, however, as a class of social profession, a professional hoteliers' team still do not cultivate. It has turned out to be a barrier to update China's hotel and to build an international hotel brand. Confronted with the global economic integration, it worth our attentions

1. While the hardware fully met the requirements of China's hotel industry, the software of management has come into the considerate sphere of investors. Under such circumstances, what a professional hoteliers should be equipped and in China's hotel industry which kind of role a professional hotelier should play in the management process?

Zheng Xiangmin: Hotel career manager should at least play four roles, as hotel's professional manager, career undertaker, vocational ethics protector and social member.

Professional manager
The requirement of the hotel industry on professional management is in conflict with hotel owner's pursuit for maximal interest and inability to undertake professional management, which asks for the generation of hotel career managers. Essentially, career manager is the manager who provides vocational and professional hotel management service with his professional management competence for realizing investment return and ensuring profitability. Thus, powerful professional hotel management competence is the all-important requirement for hotel career managers and their required qualification.

A qualified hotel career manager not only has to possess systematic professional management knowledge and abundant hotel management experience but also should hold required quality and spirit and be acute enough to catch up with the change of hotel market requirement and able to organize a powerful and effective team. Furthermore, he should be able to innovate and make quick decision, upright, self-disciplined and firm enough.

Career undertaker
Hotel career manager is the career undertaker in a hotel who acquires ideal investment return with his competence and maximizes his value via the platform of hotel management provided by the owner. The management market in the hotel industry is the platform not only for measuring the value of career managers but also for deploying their own resources and maximizing their own value. To some extent, career manager is a economic man and profit hunter, which decides that career manager is prone to be rented. To restrain career manager's such motive and behavior, it is required to improve hotel career manager's vocational quality, adjust his own value ideology, balance the relationship between short-term interest and long-term interest and establish an appropriate hotel career manager market restraint and supervision system.

Vocational ethics protector
The authorization-deputation contradiction exists in hotel owner and career manager. Hotel owner authorizes a career manager to operate and manage his hotel, and he can not predict and control exactly the result of hotel operation and management by the career manager. The fundamental to solve the contradiction rests with career manager's vocational ethics. The hotel career manager should first be loyal to his job and business, take vocational development of the hotel industry as his lifelong objective and cherish and protect his own honor and hotel operational faith. And he should observe and protect vocational ethics.

Li Yuan: Now he takes the position of Director of Tourism and Hotel Management Department, Professor, Post Graduate Guide in SiChuan University. He is also the inspector of National hotel Star-ranking and Director in China’s National Theme Hotel Committee.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Social member
No mater how glorious the post is or how outstanding the work is, any hotel career manager can not do without the social development environment. As a member of the society, he has to take part in social interaction and receive the influence and restraint of social culture and regulations. But the role may be inconsistent with his occupation as a career manager. For example, human relationship may usually challenge his occupational faith and loosen his adherence to vocational ethics, which may cause in-office consumption or other insincere behavior.

2. In 2006, as China's hotel industry develops rapidly, the requirements towards hotel talents turn out to be more and more sharp. Please mention what is the talents crisis and in which aspects? And please give us some examples.

Zheng Xiangmin: With the rapid development of the hotel Industry in China, talents in the hotel industry flow more frequently and talent crisis become more and more severe, which has become the focus of the industry. Personally, talent crisis in Chinese hotel industry is materialized in unbalance of talent supply and demand, which causes the crisis of talent supply, and the block of training system and channel, which causes the crisis of talent training, together with the crisis of talent credit arising out of concept and system as well as other matters.

Talent supply crisis
Talent supply crisis is dominantly materialized in shortage of talent supply aggregate and low supply quality. Regarding supply aggregate, actually a batch of talents, especially the intermediate and senior managers, have been trained and developed in the hotel industry in China with around 20 years' development. They have been educated with the managerial technologies of the West in foreign-owned hotels, accumulated management experience from their long-term practice in state-owned hotels or acquired practice experience in hotels after receiving the education of systematic management theories in tourism colleges. Though these hotel professionals have become the main force for hotel operation and management in China, the number is still far away from the demand on talents by the rapidly developing hotel industry in China. Regarding supply quality, hotels' senior talents with systematic theoretic education and rich management experience occupy a comparatively low proportion in China, and most are hotel managers of low education, experience style or profession switch. Under the competitive circumstances of system innovation, structural upgrade and global operation that Chinese hotel industry has to meet, more professional intermediate and senior managerial talents are demanded, while realistically the quality of talent supply is unsatisfying, which thus shapes the structural imbalance of talent supply.

Qi Yuwei: He graduated from China Europe International Business School and got the certificate of EMBA. In 2003, he took the position of General Manager in Resort Golden Palm Hotel Management Company and now takes the position of General Manager in Sanya YaLong Bay 5th Unique Villa Hotel.

 

 

 

 

 

Talent training crisis
Currently, there are two channels for talent training in the hotel industry in China: professional training by tourism colleges and practical training inside the industry. According to relevant statistics, not more than 20% of hospitability graduates supplied by tourism colleges in China, especially graduates with bachelor degrees, remain employed by hotels, whereas most have left the hotel industry or even the travel industry. The matter should be attributed to the disconnection of the theoretic education of hospitability specialty in tourism colleges with business practice, which produces quite a few graduates of hospitability specialty with high education level, greater ambition but poor practice ability, reluctantly to be employed by hotels. On the other hand, since hotels attach importance to practical experience and make light of theoretic ability, many such graduates can not tolerate long-term work in the grass roots and therefore switch to other trades. Besides, may hotels actually lack of a sound employment and training system and quite a few outstanding graduates find no favorable platform for development there and have to drop their jobs. From the viewpoint of in-house practice training, most hotels in China hold insufficient conditions for training professionals. Many hotels can not provide a systematic and professional talent training environment and conditions expect basic skill training and lack of a long-term plan for training potential talents. Employees can acquire insufficient or little management training or promotion training. Furthermore, hotels face many matters like excessive stress on practice and dependence on experience, lack of a fair vocational development opportunity, hardness for the materialization of education value and shortage of excellent standby professionals, which aggravate the crisis against talent training to a great extent.

Talent credit crisis
Talent crisis in the hotel industry is also expressed in talent credit crisis. The mechanism and platform for gathering and evaluating the credit standing of hotels and employees have not yet been established in the hotel industry in China and there are serious matters concerning credit standing between employer and employees, manager and staff. An employer does not trust his employees, which causes the matter that his hotel makes little of various interests of employees and employees pay no concern on hotel's interest and their own enterprises; employees do not trust his employee so that they only concern about their own employment safety and change their jobs frequently; a manager trust no staff, and thus the hotel seldom care about staff's interest and is reluctant to invest in staff training so that brain drain always happens; staff trust no manager, and thus they become simple mechanical operators and have no enthusiasm and potential developed.

Talent supply crisis, talent training crisis and talent credit crisis in the hotel industry influence mutually. Talent supply crisis causes frequent talents turnover, aggravates hotel's credit crisis and brings talent credit crisis that many hotel owners are reluctant and dare not to train talents and hotels compete with each other for talents viciously. Whereas, talent credit crisis results in shortage of talent supply in the hotel industry.

Li Yuan: Professional hoteliers are professional managers that take the career of hotel management. Relying on his management capacity, he wins the management rights entrusted by hotel managers and get relative reimbursement and reliance from the proprietors. Above all, self-management, market recognition and reimbursement system are conditions that could decide whether a professional hoteliers' team could be built or not. In retrospective of the 20 years developing process, the growth and survival environment for a professional hoteliers are not optimistic.

Weak foundation
Professional hoteliers are natural persons, however, its development and maturity depend on the whole levels of the enormous groups. Although the employees in hotel increase 25% on the average, by the end of 2004, it climbed up to 1,446,100 in the 10,888 star-rated hotels. With the continuous growth of employees and the ripening of industry, the employees' quality becomes lower. According to the human resources report in China's hotels 2005 conducted by Gu Huimin, the hotel personnel in China's hotel turns out to be the following situations.

Few talents with high quality and potentiality
That is mainly caused by the experience-barriers and less attraction to the hotel environment. At present, there are 9.6% employees with college levels or above, 15.67% with junior college, 52.19% with middle school levels and 27.68% other levels. Although we could not judge the services level of the employees from its education levels, to an extent it reflects the low developing potentiality of hoteliers.

Difficult to keep the high quality talents
The flowing rate of hotel employees varies and averages by 8%-10%. It also varies according to various hierarchies. In light of the statistics conducted by Gu Huimin, the job-hopping rate of the colleges and first front staff members are higher than others. In the five star hotels, the job-hopping ratio between the students in colleges and skilled staff members are 46.2% to 41%. In the four star hotels, that of it is 31.80% to 63. In the three star hotels, that of it is 18.80% to 73.50%. In the two rated hotels, the ratio of it is 12.10% to 75.80%. Viewing from the staff members hopping-rate, the movement towards outfields takes a share of 80.3% and while the infield movement rate is 19.7%. The employees with college levels are parts, which are equipped with the potentialities and the skilled staff members are the demonstrations of professional hoteliers. The high frequency movement of employees gives an expression to the instabilities of the professional building.

Platform Vacancy
The values of professional hoteliers could be realized by the frequent movement and exchange among staff members, while the conditions for movement and exchange are as a social class and its brand are fully recognized by society. In a long time, we have ignored the problems of professional hoteliers' training, identification, recommendation and construction of the promotion systems etc. Although there are still a lot of skilled local hoteliers, they still lack in systematic theory and sustained education chances. Only relying on one's hotel's experience, could hotel adapts to the dynamic changes of market. Another aspect, lacking in enough professional supporting team and social standard after they entering into market, it is very difficult to judge one's capacity. Third, after they enter into market, being lack of enough team supports, it is easy for them to be involved into an embarrassed state. That is to say, lacking in a basic platform to promote and grow, no matter how excellent your hoteliers you are, it is difficult to enter into market and display one's value.

Limited market space
China's hotel industry is an opening industry in China's society. According to the relative statistics conducted by National Tourist Bureau, by the end of 2004, there are 50.3% state-owned enterprises, 9.2% collective groups, 1.79% foreign ventures, 3.19% Hong Kong, Macao, and Tailand enterprises according to the star-rated ownership. In the priorities, the living space for hoteliers is quite small. First, the possibility of taking in the professional hoteliers is small and relative reimbursement system is not perfect due to long-term executive system and ambiguous ownership. Second, viewing from the various enterprises with different ownership, according to the statistics conducted by Gu Huimin, 69.2% hotel managers or hoteliers are cultivated by one's own hotels, in which the ratio between the employees in the hotel which entrust the management right to others cultivated by itself or employed from outside is 39.1% to 4.3%, while the ratio in the hotels which manage by itself is 67.8% to 3.4%. And the ratio in host-self management is 73.9% to 2% and ratio in other types is 75.5% to 4.1%. The management hierarchies that come from one's own hotels are higher than that of others, therefore, the survival space for the professional hoteliers is limited. According to the survey concerning the job-hopping, the salary attractions from other fields are higher about 69.1%, and the hotel attraction rate would climb up to 19.7%. While the unsatisfactory rate to the hotel is 3.1% and inadaptable rate towards hotel job is 0.3%. It is could be easily induced that the irrational salary system is the main reason which make the whole industry in a poor state. This kind of job phenomenon exerts great influences on the professional hoteliers' market.

3. There is a high job-hopping rate in China's hotel industry. Majority professional hoteliers could not get relative reimbursement, until they job-hop in a high frequency. Could you tell me under what circumstances would you consider leaving the hotels?

Qi Yuwei: As a professional hotelier, who usually leaves his position at a high frequency, I think the most important thing we should consider is that we have fully recognized our own value.
While we think we have recognized it, we could fully achieve our own goal to realize value. Besides that a professional hotelier should be in possession of good working habits and maintaining good reputation is also very important. In addition, holding a good sense of responsibilities is very important.

4. What kinds of hotelier are easy to reach a common goal with proprietor? In your point of view, what the proprietor would like to work with, a well-organized team or an excellent hotelier? How do you organize your team? Generally speaking, how long does proprietor cooperate with professional hotelier?

Qi Yuwei: According to his various purposes of proprietors, it consists of long-term, short-term and comprehensive investment. In addition, according to different ownership, it could be divided into state-owned, such as, Dong Fang Hotel Management Company; non-governmental, such as, World Trade Grand Hotel Zhejiang and other hotels in Hangzhou; stocking holding, such as, Grand Hyatt Shanghai, Hangzhou Hyatt etc; Joint-venture etc.

Long-term investment
Long-term investment refers to that proprietors treat the hotel as the main capital investment and they will spend their main vitality and fortune to manage and invest.

Short-term investment
The proprietors of short-term investment usually give the priority to the hotel investment than to other kinds of investment.

Comprehensive investment
It aims to adapt to the various kinds of requirements especially the scientific investment.

No matter a proprietor from home or abroad is inclined to choose a team. Management team is important, just as what have mentioned in the hotel industry. Hotel is made by stone and person. For the hotel, hardware is stone while software is person. Personnel are the main forces for team spirit. And for a proprietor, a skilled hotelier is less secured than a team, because people may make mistakes. However, a good team could supplement the weak points the team members.

Of course, someone may think that we should just afford one with less cost compared with the team. In addition, the procedure of cooperation is simple. If one could find the right one, there is no need for him to look for another one. Therefore, someone prefers to choose an excellent team to cooperate. In our company, we have been trying to cultivate a good team and to accumulate consolidated knowledge. Only in this way, could we get promotion and turn out to be more and more mature.
China's hotel industry is a dynamic industry especially the relationship between the proprietor and professional hoteliers. That is hard to say how long and it depends. Some professional hoteliers just treat the cooperation with proprietor as lifetime career. For example, a well-known Taiwan hotelier has cooperated with his proprietor for several years, which has come to certain degree.

In addition, the time proprietor cooperates with professional hotelier is up to certain elements such as the common recognitions between proprietor and professional hoteliers and their abilities, characters, professional standard etc. If both parties do not share the common value, it would lack of cooperation basis and this kind of cooperation would be difficult to sustain.

5. To be honest is basic for each employee to comply with and is also the promise made between one's career and proprietor. What do you think of loyalty in China's hotel industry?

Zheng Xiangmin: Credit mechanism is the base of the career manager system. The lack of creditability will not only cause low work efficiency and high deputation cost but also affect the healthy development of career manager system. Insincerity always brings conflict between employer and career manager.

Credit itself is a multidimensional restrained balance mechanism. It includes the credit of career manager and employer, social credit system, credit evaluation and restraint system, etc. Employer's trust on career manager importantly ensures career manager's trust on employee and inspires career manager's work ardor and innovation support. Career manager's trust on employer is fundamental to the credit of the employer and the precondition for the healthy development of career manager system. Besides, social credit system and career manager credit evaluation and restraint mechanism based on a third party serve as a platform and bridge for connecting the credit of career manager and employer and lack of a sound social credit system and manager credit evaluation and restraint mechanism will weaken the credit of both parties.

Under the circumstances of imperfectness and slow development of social credit system in China, it is required first to establish a scientific and third-party-based hotel career manager credit evaluation and restraint mechanism before finally setting up the hotel career manager credit system. The credit evaluation and restraint mechanism should include two levels. First, the senior level: hotel career managers association or organization constructs a platform for credit collection and evaluation, for example, the credit record for hotel career managers of China, where the credit performance of hotel career managers and hotel owners are recorded and evaluated. Second, junior level: establish a in-house professional consulting committee composed of career managers, hotel owners and external directors to objectively evaluate the behavior of hotel career managers and owner. Besides, contract is required to be signed by and between career manager and hotel owner for legal restraint and credit assurance.

Only credit that is established on the basis of mutual expectation between hotel owners and career managers can be stable enough. Thus, hotel career manager and owner are required to be sincere and credible. When a hotel owner retains a career manager, he should introduce comprehensively the actual operational environment of his hotel to applicants and carry out strict and scientific examination on hotel career managers to avoid a decision based on brainstorm or experience. On the other hand, hotel career managers should go beyond a high salary to calculate scientifically the actual operational environment of the hotel or enterprise that is going to retain him and make correct judgment.

Qi Yuwei: As a professional hotelier, it is essential for him to give the right answer. Be loyal is the basic condition for each of them to accomplish and cooperation. If each of them could not got a right solution, they much work together to find a rational answer. Good cooperation and coordination are the good way to solve the problems. In addition, to be regardful of one's promise is up to the whole society, not just the proprietors or professional hoteliers. First, the legal system in the whole society; Second, both party should share the same social recognitions which could display the value of talents.

6. What do you think of hotel training? How could we undergo training? Do you have any good suggestions? How could the top managers make their employees fully satisfied?

Qi Yuwei: There is a saying in hotel industry that to make the customers fully satisfied is essential to make your staff members fully satisfied first.

1 To analyze what your staff members really need?
2 Proper salary is a basic condition to secure your staff members.
3 Harmonious working environment is a good atmosphere for the employees to comply with.
4 Giving certain promotion space is an important element to maintain the staff members.

Above all, it is bad for the youths to job-hop in a high frequency, because to accumulate bears a long process. However, for a hotel, we should treat the problem objectively and give the employees opportunities to promote. Only relying on the continuous self-promotion, could the employees are willing to stay. In fact, high frequent movement of staff members does good to the development of hotel.

Majority hotels are not willing to give the training opportunity to its staff members, because of the high frequent job-hopping activities in hotel industry. In a long-term, we should be confident that they would be willing to stay under circumstance of good promotion circumstances.

7. To promote the building task of professional hoteliers' team is an arduous and long-term work. Could you give us some constructive suggestions concerning the current talent crisis and training agents?

Zheng Xiangmin: With the insufficient supply of talent aggregate in the hotel industry, it is impossible to solve the existing matters by implementing various talent limitation policies or attracting talents from other enterprises with better remuneration. The fundamental is to carry out talent training, integrate the power of tourism colleges, hotels and tourism management departments and reform the hotel talent training, employment and pooling system.

Firstly, reform gradually the training and education mode for the hospitability specialty in tourism colleges and attach importance to the practice and internship of students for hospitability specialty. Currently, most hotels that accept interins in China actually are to utilize them to reduce their staff cost and seldom consider singly the provision of practice chance for them. Macao Special Administrative Region promulgated the No. 16/96 Decree with a view to promote the training of hotel talents, requiring hotels to employ preferably graduates from tourism colleges and tourism and hospitability schools and demanding 4 and 5-star hotels to sign contracts with the above-mentioned schools or belonging entities for providing graduates with some internship posts. Hotels in mainland China should refer to the practice in Macao and be encouraged to accept interns from tourism colleges and schools with favorable tax or hotel star-level management policies to provide practice and study environment and conditions for them.

Secondly, adopt positive policies to provide convenience and guarantee for hotels to train talents and improve their enthusiasm to train talents. First, make use of the strength of hotels association and tourism colleges and schools to supply more talent exchange and central training chances for hotels; second, provide capital support and favorable policies to encourage hotels to set up talent training centers and train talents by themselves; third, standardize the labor contract between hotels and employees to guarantee hotels' interest and employees' acquisition of trainings. Besides, hotels are encouraged to introduce the management and training system and thus enable potential talents to be trained in their posts, which may also solve the matter that hospitability graduates are reluctant to join in hotels and education supply lags behind the industrial demand.

Tourism administration departments and industry association should provide corresponding industrial service, policy guideline and necessary fund support to ensure the implementation of the above measures, for example, utilizing tourism development fund for hotels' provision of training or applying favorable tax policies to encourage hotels to provide more training on management and skills for staff.

Li Yuan: It is a long-term and arduous job to promote and build China's professional hoteliers' job, which not only refers to the harmonious development in hotel industry but also concerns with the innovations of governmental performances and the ripeness of market economy.

To continuously raise the professional awareness in hotel industry
Modern hotel is a new conception originated from the foreign hotel management companies. However, there are still some problems existing in China's hotel industry, such as, wrong management strategy or goal, the unbalanced talents selection, irrational salary system and imperfect personnel developing system etc. All these elements would influence on the development of hotel industry. As you all know, weak awareness of professional would do bad to the authority of hotel management and exerts evil influences on the professional hoteliers. Above all, to aware and update of professional level are the conditions to realize a professional hoteliers' team building.

Macro control functions performed by the government
The governmental power plays a macro control over the promotion of professional hoteliers' team and is also an important security to maintain the professional hoteliers' team in a sustained development. National Tourist Bureau has listed the cultivation of professional team into its item and formulated a checking system of hotel managers and department managers. In the August 2004, China's Hotel Association has put forward a national standard concerning the qualifications and conditions for the professional hoteliers' building. Government macro control set up a good platform for the growth and development of a professional hoteliers' team and it make the team walk on a more stable and secured road.

The transfer and promotion of hotel management conception
Professional hotelier is generated under the circumstances of market economy. To establish and cultivate a professional hoteliers' team, it is essential to transform the management theory and adopt a scientific way to operate a specialized production process.

Hoteliers' self-promotion
Professional hotelier is a profession mark but not a symbol of right and position. Ability is a core element to judge the professional hoteliers. It is essential to set up a career value to work for the hotel for a lifetime. Second, career reputation is life for the professional hoteliers. A qualified hoteliers should be equipped with good characters such as loyalty, honest and team spirit. Third, professional hotel level, it requires the professional hoteliers equipped with marketing sense, innovation, competition, responsibilities and brand etc. Each hotelier should used to observe and accumulate etc and to update oneself.
Hotel industry has come into the period of professional hoteliers. Only relying on the concerted efforts made by country, enterprise and hoteliers, could China's professional hoteliers' team become more prosperous and strong.

Qi Yuwei: Talent vacancy is the problem of the whole hotel industry. We should pay attentions to the following aspects. First, it is rational to attract the young to join in. Second, to encourage the students majored in tourism to participate in hotel industry. Third, hotel is a service industry, therefore, we must be clear the reason or why. Forth, give the hotel talents certain training. Fifth, look for talents from other industry or field.

Talent crisis exerts great influences on China's hotel industry. Hotel industry, as a newly uprising industry with great developing potentiality, is confronted with many problems, such as, self-management models and the way of management, which needs immediate reforming and promotion. Therefore, there are higher requirements on the domestic management talents. In this term, the professional hoteliers or skilled managers with rich experience formulate lots of constructive experience and theories in the long-term practice. Next term, we will continue to invite the skilled experts and hotel proprietors to explore it.