Thailand’s Dusit...

and Wijesinghe was responding to a question on how Dusit Thani will face the challenge of sourcing labour in an industry that is currently bereft of it.

Tens of thousands of vacancies will have to be filled in the hospitality industry by 2020 to deal with an expected increase in tourist arrivals from the current 2 million to 4 million. Indola Group Director Paul Dwyer said that the Dusit Thani head office is currently in discussions with two local parties on establishing the hotel school, after the Indola Group turned down the possibility due a hotel school being a divergence of business interests for the Indola Group.

However, he said that the establishment of more hospitality training institutes are crucial for Sri Lanka.

“Sri Lanka needs a training college because at the end of the day, tourists especially in 5-stars come for the service. Dusit Thani is renowned for its service and it basically has to train the local people on how to offer that service,” Dwyer said. Both he and Wijesinghe refrained from answering how big of an investment the hotel school would attract to Sri Lanka. Dusit Thani, which operates 29 properties worldwide, and has 51 more projects in the pipeline, already has several training institutes in Thailand offering vocational and postgraduate degrees. The firm’s education division was started in 1993 with the Dusit Thani College.

A new hotel school is expected to open in Manila, Philippines in 2018.

Sri Lanka has a state-owned hotel school and its satellite schools which are the largest hospitality training operations in the country. Some leading local hospitality brands have their very own hotel schools, while several independent training outfits, and a handful of international hotel schools from Switzerland and Australia are also present in Sri Lanka.