Page 12 - Islands Business May-June 2022

Tourism Tourism

Tourism Fiji’s Brent Hill at the FTE. Yumi gat talent

Labour pressures bit longer, while everything else starts to come back,” says
The difficulty of attracting and keeping staff in the industry Lockington. “We feel like, hang on, we’re just standing up
may hamper recovery efforts across the region. here, don’t kick us in the knees right now. The bigger hotels
“We are facing a loss of critical staff and institutional are losing quite a lot of their workers. And so, as the bigger
knowledge and job skills,” SPTO CEO, Chris Cocker recently hotels lose their workers, the smaller properties, including
told regional journalists. the smaller businesses, they’re losing theirs… to the bigger
Recent research conducted by academics at Massey Univer- hotels.”
sity, “Measuring the Wellbeing of Tourism Reliant Communities Hill agrees that labour shortages are of concern.
in the South Pacific During the COVID-19 Pandemic”, found “If someone says, I want to be able to go up there and earn
some ambivalence amongst former tourism workers from an Australian wage and send money back home, who am I to
Fiji, Samoa, Cook Islands and Vanuatu about returning to the try and hold them back? But at the same time, skilled labour
industry. is really important here. So what we have to do is to make
The authors, Regina Scheyvens, Apisalome Movono and oth- sure that our industry remunerates as best as it possibly can,
ers found, “A wide range of positive and negative views about and I know in a lot of cases, the resorts will pay well above
tourists were expressed, with some Pacific peoples strug- award rates, which is really great, provide opportunities,
gling without tourists during the period of COVID-19. Some of provide exciting job roles, all those kinds of things so that
those who were positive about the lack of tourists during the people really incentivise to work and stay in Fiji. Trying to get
pandemic period expressed that this was necessary to protect the best talent at the moment is difficult, it’s a very competi-
the health of their people. Many also noted they were taking tive market.”
better care of themselves and their communities when they Senior Vice President at Warwick Hotels and Resorts, Tam-
didn’t have to focus so much of their energy on tourists. mie Tam, says the labour problem is even worse for them on
“‘It has been good for my wellbeing because I am learn- the Coral Coast. “Some of the families have decided, ‘Oh, I
ing how to live better,’” one male tourism worker told the have five family members, all five used to work in the hotel,
authors. I’m putting all the eggs in one basket and now I’ve learnt that
There are a variety of reasons for labor shortages, including I can’t do that.”
labour migration and work scheme programs to Australia. Vanuatu reopens its borders on 1 July, and a labour coalition
“One of the concerns we have is that we’ve got very skilled has been formed between government departments and the
staff going out from hospitality who are executive chefs or Vanuatu Tourism Organisation to attract workers to the sector.
senior managers in their own right, they are moving off to do Meanwhile the President of Cook Islands Tourism Industry
work overseas, but they’re not working in the areas of their Council and GM Muri Beach Club, Liana Scott, says they have
expertise,” says Fantasha Lockington. “I know that the money major staffing issues. “Because we had such a good relation-
is good, and that’s great, that money eventually comes back ship with New Zealand, we did lose a number of our local
to Fiji. But their experience isn’t being enhanced in any way, Cook Island staff to New Zealand. But more than that, and
because that person will come back at the same level that he what some of the trend recently has been, is actually losing
went as. So, where does that leave our industry? We’re saying some of our migrant workers. And generally, when you have
we want Fiji to be high value, how do we continue to do that migrant workers work for you, you contract them for three
high value if we don’t have enough skilled staff to be working years or up to six years. So having those losses has been quite
within the industry? tough on businesses.”
“I just feel on a personal level that as Fiji, we’re making Scott says this means businesses are having to ensure they
it so easy for people to simply leave but we’re forgetting don’t compromise service, and are adapting by shortening
that we’re supposed to be also helping the biggest industry opening hours, not taking walk-in customers or redesigning
get back off its knees and sustain the economy for a little menus.

12 Islands Business, May-June 2022