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According to Amadeus Philippines, the continued migration of Filipino tourism workers can eventually cause local industries to scale down their operations.

“A total of 12% is the number of Filipinos who are in the tourism industry who leaves the country in order to work abroad,” said Albert Villadolid general manager of Amadeus Philippines.

Joseph Ace H. Durano, chief of the tourism department, had observed that the local hotel and resorts have been experiencing difficulties in finding new hires and even resort to pirating workers from each other.

“Nevertheless, I am confident to say that as our tourism sector grows, Filipino workers who are in tourism industry will be coming back in the Philippines,” Mr. Durano said.

Philippine Overseas Employment Administration or POEA data show that roughly 10% of the 1, 077, 623 Filipinos deployed abroad during the year of 2007 were service workers, which is considered as the second biggest share after production workers.

The local tourism industry offers better paying jobs and opportunities abroad to the newly hired workers after their 6 months working experience here, Mr. Villadolid said.

In order to address this problem, he also recommends that the curriculum for the BS Tourism course should be improved.

“Universities and colleges are teaching students mainly on management topics, when in fact, what they need most is the technical skills for them to be hired.”

The consultancy and e-commerce firm for the tourism industry, Amadeus is currently partnering with 15 schools including the University of the Philippines, College of the Holy Spirit, College of Saint Benilde, and the Polytechnic University of the Philippines in a bid to match classroom teachings with the industry’s requirements.

Meanwhile, the Tourism department holds annual job fairs for graduates of tourism and other service-oriented courses.