BHUBANESWAR: Odisha’s tourism industry is back on its feet post Covid-19 pandemic, but the hospitality sector now stares at a widening crisis of trained manpower. Almost every hotel and restaurant in the State - across all categories - are facing a severe trained manpower shortage in different hospitality roles, according to the Hotel and Restaurants Association of Odisha (HRAO).
While only 30 per cent of the hospitality staff in Bhubaneswar, which is the first choice for MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences and exhibitions) tourism in the State, is trained, the percentage is as low as 10 pc in places like Cuttack, Puri and Ganjam, said HRAO chairman JK Mohanty.
During the pandemic when hotels shut down, half of the staff lost their jobs and the rest faced pay cuts. As lockdowns continued, hotels further cut down on trained staff to reduce costs. Industry insiders said the workers who were laid off during the pandemic moved to other sectors. A majority of them did not return.
Today, the stakeholders are finding it difficult to ready a trained workforce to cater to the tourist footfall once the five-month tourism season begins in October.
“Be it food and beverage service or frontline roles, we are facing a manpower crunch at all levels. In fact, the pandemic brought in a sense of job insecurity in hospitality roles which is why the workers are not willing to return,” said Debasish Patnaik, director of The Crown and founder of Dalma restaurant. He added that post-Covid, it is increasingly becoming difficult to get skilled manpower at the existing salary structures considering the fact that there hasn’t been a steep hike in hospitality and service industry costs.
Even as Odisha has around 40 hotel management institutes, they are of little help in bridging the demand-supply gap in the sector. The institutes produce at least 3,000 graduates in a year. “But at least 80 per cent of them, including the best graduates, shift to metro cities, other countries to work,” Mohanty added.
In other places, the pay is almost the same as Odisha but the perks for hotel management graduates are better. A star category hotel needs 90 pc trained personnel across all sections. Odisha currently has 16-star category hotels with 1,242 rooms. Each room needs at least three trained staff, sources said.
By the year 2026, the State will see the presence of bigger hotel groups like Hyatt, Radisson, Taj (2 properties coming up in Puri and Bhubaneswar), Novotel and Marriott. Under the current circumstances, the government should facilitate incentives for existing hotel management and training centres to generate more quality manpower, said Mohanty.