“The great challenge of the season is to give arguments to customers and be convincing so that sales do not drop”, he highlights Julio Herrera Estévez, teacher of the Master in Hotel and Restaurant Management at Ostelea and director at Valuegensys-safety, in an exclusive interview for Tourinews. Ostelea Tourism Management School is an international university center, with campuses in Barcelona and Madrid, specialized in the training of leaders, managers and technicians focused on the Hospitality and Tourism industry. Valuegensys-safety is a startup focused on providing advice, prevention and contagion solutions for Covid-19 to public and private entities.
To meet the challenge of being convincing, many companies are turning to the training of your professionals. “If the company is clear about all this and, in addition, trains, encourages and empowers its employees, in the end they will compensate for the natural tendency to be billed less,” says Herrero. The most requested is the “refresher training”, which seeks that workers who are reincorporating from the ERTE to have their jobs again. skills at the same level as before the pandemic; and “tailor-made training”, explains the teacher. Regarding the summer season, Herrero highlights that the forecasts point to “it being possible to make a summer at 50% of 2019 “ and that the most probable thing is that there is work “for half of the workforce at the national level”.
Question (Q): What kind of students do you have at Ostelea? Students with experience in the tourism sector or who are beginning to train now?
Answer (R): Of the two types. We have various programs, some focused on people with experience, in fact, there are programs that are part-time and that allows a person to be working while they are training; and we also have full-time programs for juniors, inexperienced or little. Therefore, we have both types.
Companies are turning to training to support their workforce “
Q: During this pandemic year, has the practical training of managers and technicians been subject to the uncertainty of the sector? How have you approached this issue from Ostelea?
R: With the same uncertainty as the rest of the sector. In this sense, we did not have any magic balls and we did not know when this was going to be reactivated so, consequently, students have had to follow their programs. From the point of view of incorporation into companies, most of selection processes: companies that usually go to Ostelea to recruit our graduates, this year they have not come, they have come later or they have come less … In other words, the whole process as a whole is being delayed.
Ostelea
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Q: In some cases, there are professionals who have not worked since the summer of 2019. Have you analyzed the difficulties these professionals will encounter upon reincorporation?
R: First of all, there are many people in ERTE who are looking forward to going back to work, for the job itself and to regain the level of income they had before the pandemic. In general, we see a very positive attitude. But of course, the current situation is similar to when we return from a vacation, although this year forced and very long, so we return with some somewhat rusty skills, although the trade is never lost. In this sense, the companies in the sector that are planning to reopen or that have already reopened are doing soda training, to get workers recovering from ERTEs back to the great skill level they had before the pandemic.
Q: And is there a methodology for people returning to work?
R: Companies are carrying out different actions. There are companies that already have the culture of training its people and, consequently, they are not having a hard time recovering them and having them at their peak again; and there are others that do not have that culture. But I would say that, in general, what we are seeing is that companies are acting on three fronts. First of all, remind your staff what your business consists of, what type of client they have, what their service philosophy is like, how they want the customer experience to be so that they can recommend them, how they work in each position … So they are putting everyone back in their place. This year it is also special to cover how they want to try to take care of clients so that feel sanitary safe and so that they can be calm.
Secondly, the workforce is being reminded that the consumer this year is spending less out of prudence, logically, and that, therefore, they have to give more arguments and be more convincing so that sales do not drop. This is the great challenge for those companies that can open. In this way, as in other crises, tourist establishments are addressing this in the appropriate way, since they are not only managing not to sell less, but sell even a little more than in 2019. If the company is clear about all this and, in addition, trains, encourages and empowers its employees, in the end they will compensate for the natural tendency to be billed less.
Thirdly, this year companies are giving a fine-tuning of their management teams and even training them. This is to ensure that they have a more detailed preparation for the reopening and the season and with a more flexible and agile approach, so that can react immediately to changes that can be presented regarding your initial plan. These are the companies that have experience in other types of crisis, so now they anticipate not to lose a month until they catch the cruise speed, which is the risk that exists within the establishments that have movement. They have to prepare to get the most out of it.
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Q: How do you foresee this recovery in the tourism sector in the coming months?
R: The most likely forecast, according to what is said in the sector, is that make a summer at 50% of 2019, which was a very good year. In addition, taking into account that this year the holidays will surely last until the month of September or October. The majority will be Spanish tourists, with a poor presence of international tourists. With respect to the United Kingdom, it is a very important market for us, so its decline will have a negative impact, especially in the Canary Islands: the province of Las Palmas, in which Germany is very important, will do well; but in the province of Santa Cruz de Tenerife, in which the United Kingdom is very important, it will be a little worse. As for destinations, vacation spots, coasts and islands, rural tourism and places that are not crowded can make a good summer, while that big cities and crowded vacation spots will still have a hard time. Further, the most optimistic forecasts place a first step of recovery in the sector, at the national level, for Easter 2022, and a recovery that could be solid for the summer of next year. And, as has happened in other crises, the last thing that will recover will be the volume of MICE – meetings, incentives, company conventions and fairs – which depends very much on the fact that the rates of Covid-19 cases are very very low and that the volume of passenger air transport has recovered, that at the health level there are already guarantees to do so, but at the political level they do not dare in Europe. According to this pattern, it is most likely that the tourism sector workforce in the different areas will be recovered from ERTE and, for this summer, there will be work for half of the workforce nationwide.
Q: What are companies demanding Ostelea from Covid-19?
R: We have seen an increase in demand for highly specialized short online courses. Companies have also contacted us, requesting tailor-made training -what is called in-company-, adapted to your needs. For example, interest has grown in the fields of digital marketing, revenue management, digitization, innovation, sustainability, health security … They are pulling us in order that, part of that oxidation in terms of knowledge, it recovers and increases its level of competence.
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