Imagine Life Without the Tourism Industry ... So Sad N Bad
Today and tomorrow, there is a job fair for Vivo City - the new shopping experience besides Habourfront that is coming up in a few months time.
There are many job openings in both the retail industry and f&b industry and these companies are going to be the new tenants of Vivo City.
Recently, the government of Singapore has been emphasing alot on the tourism industry with its aim of dont-know-how many thousands or millions of tourists it aims to attract by dont-know-which year. The government also announced the launch of the intergrated resort in Singapore in the near future. Recently, there are many international bodies and organisations coming to Singapore for important meetings and conference such as IMF and World Bank.
Because of these plans and events coming up in the future, the government also recently set up a new team who consisted of a few top managers in the tourism industry and they set up "GEMS - Go Extra Mile for Service" and they come up with new ideas to improve our level of services in Singapore.
With these introductions, one can easily see that there will be a huge boost in the tourism industry with lots of new jobs openings in the various new set up shopping centres and resorts. This will be a very exciting industry to watch out for since this industry is going to boost our local economy.
However, sad to say, our local mindset, especially the older generation, do not think very positively to those working in the tourism industry. They see it as an industry where all those aunties and uncles work as they don't have much skills and education or a place for the young ones to work part time during the school holidays and definitely not a full time job especially if you are a graduate with a diploma and higher.
Because of this mindset, one can see that sometimes some customers are real nasty to the service staff even though it is of no fault of the service staff. Some customers are very proud of themselves for being so well educated and so well rich that they actually put up airs and look down on the service staff and belittled the service staff. They can actually twist their words and make complains to the managers as though it is the service staff who is at fault.
True that this industry is a tough line to be in with all the shift work and working in the public holidays and weekends too and dealing with the nasty customers. But don't forget, this industry does need these educated people with qualifications of diploma and above to hold the managerial positions and to come up with new and exciting ideas to bring the company to new heights.
If all of us hold this view that this industry is not suitable for those with higher education, then we will have a serious problem in this industry since we are lacking of new talents to improve the industry as a whole. If this industry remains stagnant, then it is useless for the government to have such an ambitious tourist target and plans to set up more resorts and attracting world renowned organisations to come to Singapore for meetings.
As what Mr Ron Kaufman (he is the Asia's leading champion for impeccable customer service and is the founder of "Up Your Service College") has said, there are 6 levels of services offered and there is still quite a distance away for the local tourism industry to reach the best service levels in the world. The 6 service levels are: Criminal (Worst), Basic, Expected, Desired, Surprising and lastly, Unbelievable! (Best - That means that you are so good that your customers will keep coming back to you again and again and again) =>
Furthermore, a lot of us are very interested to live a comfortable life after our retirement. It has been known that being an employee for the rest of our lives do not promise us to live comfortably, but starting our own successful business is one of the ways to live a comfortable life.
Comparing B2B (business to business) and B2C (business to consumers), it would be better for us to have a B2C business especially for a just start up firm. This is because your customers will pay you cash and you will have credit terms with your suppliers. It is a very important issue to manage the cashflow effectively for the company for basic survival.
The tourism industry is a very broad industry that consists of both the retail and f&b industry, therefore there are many options for you to choose from to start up your own business. But before you start up your own business, it's best for you to gain some experience first by working in the company that is in the same line which you want to set up your business.
Therefore, with this parting note, I hope that I can see more new talents especially the young ones in this industry so that we can boost the overall tourism industry in Singapore and make Singapore one of the must go destinations in the world for all purposes, be it for business or for leisure.
posted by Sincere Lee | 10:12 AM
2 Comments:
Juz too bad that the vivo city job fair crashes with work so can't go,U R right that some customer treat sale staff as low education people, but some nasty customer sometime come from the sale staff itself in the way that to take revenge on how other customer treated them that a very bad sign. Inorder to make customer keep coming back to us is not only giving them good service, is to be able to help them find what their need n when they are happy with the product they purchase they will come back to you cos they know that you able to fulfill their need. Oh no is raining need to close the window but got to close this one first. Bye Cheers
hi pinochio
thanks for your comment, whoever you are ...
like a saying goes "what goes out will come back". So how we treat the sales staff and how the sales staff treat us is a two way street. in order to improve singapore service standards, we need to make the initiative to provide good service first regardless we are service staff or not, as service applies to all situations or relationships you have with others. in fact, service begins when one person communicate with the other person regardless of the situation.
as for your point on we must know what do the customers need in order for the customers to come back, you are right partially. for example, in the retail industry, a customer may say they want to buy a levis blue straight cut jeans. but this levis jeans can be find in a lot of places such as departmental stores and boutiques. so the customer does not necessary come back to the same company as they used to buy before. but what makes them comes back, not only because of the services provided, but also what matters most is how the sales staff sell the items to them. if the sales staff sell the item just based on product features, then it does not entice the customers to buy. what the customers are actually buying is the value (not monetary value), the emotions that the customers experience when using the item. but currently, this is not strongly practiced in our country. we are still doing product feature selling, rather than product value selling. maybe next time i write a topic on this with more details ...
once again, pinochio, thanks for your comment ... hope to see you leave more comments in my blog in the future! =>
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