Today is World Tourism Day - A timely
article by the MD of SL Tourism, highlighting the absurdly poor Labor Force
Participation Rate (LFP) for women in Sri Lanka (14th worst in the world) in a
Country where two thirds of graduates are women! So it is not that our ladies
are uneducated, they are not empowered to take charge as the male chauvinist
pigs, and their scion token women, still dominate Diyawanna Island of shameless
fornicators. We have preening prima donnas gracing high offices in the state
sector who think the woman's job is still to make the tea! So good women aren't
attracted to the Industry.
It's not the public sector that we
should stuff our graduate females in Divisional Secretariats throughout the
land or in downright questionable teaching jobs more as secure employment, but
teach them languages and skills and engage them in being the front end of our
PR Image of Brand Sri Lanka in showing the face of HR in Sri Lanka Tourism,
where the Industry at present is bending over backwards to chase away tourists
because of insincere ploys to extract every penny from hapless visitors to this
Country, without a value for money service, which I believe the ladies of Sri
Lanka can be on the front line to correct, counter and conquer.
Of course many readers, who are men do
not understand the point I am making because they are only concerned about
their own short term business model and not of the overall and long term model
of sustainable tourism as part of the 17 Millenium SDGs for SRI LANKA, that
they simply are not concerned about. Its time for a sea change in thinking to
include women in all aspects of Tourism Growth, to fill this skill gap of HR in
Hospitality at all levels, and provide them with safe, secure and free from
sexual exploitation employment.
There is a cultural issue not addressed
in the article, namely in encouraging females into this Industry due to
hitherto connotations of sexual exploitation, that has to change actively and
passively to get the best and brightest to follow this path.
One of the bug bears of the Tourism
Sector is that they are losing good HR to overseas opportunities, I challenge
that this will be less so if more women are trained and employed. They are more
likely to be loyal to the establishments that trained them, as long as their
path to advancement is not impeded. Something for the hospitality industry to
think about seriously, as we have the HR, we are simply not attracting them,
and empowering them. Growth and development Sri Lanka suffers as a result. We
cannot even think that the moribund State will be of any assistance in this
goal, so it is all over to you, the private sector to take the lead.
Charmarie Maelge I trust
this is a sincere attempt to enhance the message you have given today, the theme
being "Tourism and Jobs"
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