Globalization allows modern trade to compete in perfect markets. On the other hand, globalization and tourism allow people to travel, learn, and exchange the way of life, culture, and norms more easily. Thus, stressing on creating value added by delivering the customer experiences through the services from the workforce could deliver the competitive advantages. Literally, human resources could make the company distinct from its rivals. Whereas the external environment keeps changing that disrupts various facets of all kind of organizations. Yet, the hasty flow of information and novelty of contemporary knowledge shapes individuals' behavior. It leads to the products/services consumption and new trends. This phenomenon makes people and organizations need to adapt themselves purposefully. But on the flip side—extensive acclimatization in the tourism industry might ruin the uniqueness and the existence identity of local people. This chapter delves into the importance of learning and development implementation as an organizational culture in tourism and hospitality sector.
Top1. Introduction
The growth of tourism rose dramatically especially in Asia Pacific region. Thailand, one of the countries in the region that has three touristic cities ranked in top 20th of the world most favorite places. Its capital city Bangkok is named in number one popular destination, according to Master Card Global Destination Cities Index 2018 (Chanthranapasawat et at., 2019). And still, The Royal Thai Embassy in Copenhagen (2022) claimed in its website that Bangkok is one of the world’s top destinations. Recently, (PPTV Online, 2023) reports the surge of tourists visit Thailand 8.5 million person in the first quarter of 2023. As a result, it generated THB 350 billion to the country. Thailand has promoted the concept visit Thailand Year 2023: Amazing New Chapters that aims to reviving the tourism industry after the pandemic attacked worldwide. The program’s concept highlights the 5Fs of soft power namely; food, film, fashion, fighting, and festival. Therefore, the new blueprint for 5 years tourism development plan was designed respectively. The plan will be used for post-pandemic tourism development with the assessment to resolve problems, revitalizing and preparing the sector to the next normal. The vision of this plan is to rebuild high-value tourism with resilience, sustainability and inclusive growth. There are four strategies including; (1) distributing income and seizing the negative impacts of tourism revenue leakage to foreign companies, balancing demand and supply by upgrading SMEs goods and services, (2) developing the tourism’s quality by upgrading digital and information infrastructure, safety and hygienic standards, (3) improving the tourism experience by promoting to high-end travelers, technology and innovation adoption to attract quality visitors with the aim to be top five global wellness destinations, (4) highlight sustainable tourism by preserving natural environment, culture and Thai’s tradition, and green tourism (Bangprapa, 2023).
According to the Thailand’s Amazing New Chapters campaign, it is obviously can be observed that there are three issues namely; the unexpected situation (the pandemic), the digitalization, and the environment that need to be addressed. Howbeit, there is another issue to be highlighted, (Steers et al., 2011) is the globalization that allows people to travel more rapidly, farther, and cheaper. This leads to the increasing of customer demands, technologies innovation and application, and competitiveness as examples. The globalization bears both opportunities and challenges. As well as, it forces business to change in order to remain competitiveness and survive (Kraus et al., 2021). To cope with the challenges, (Steers et al., 2011) advise to develop a learning strategy, a basic knowledge of diverse cultures, cross-cultural communications etc. Yet, the digital capability building should be included since it enables firms to respond both internal and external changes quickly. It also enhances the innovative solutions (Wang et al., 2022; Konopik et al., 2022). Therefore, the preparedness of tourism industry’s workforces is essential for striving to the success in global economy. In the big view at national level, the human resource in tourism sector has to be ready to pamper the development plan of the country strategies. At the organizational level, the tourism related business especially the entrepreneurs shall consider the capability building of its own employees. On the other hand, local government shall create the rapport with educators to provide the training for local residents in several aspects to manipulate the tourism sustainably. Thence, in this chapter will discuss the significance of HRD setting the learning and development as a culture in the tourism sector.