Tourism and hospitality industry throughout the world has been significantly slowed down since the emergence of Covid-19. After many countries had fought the spreading pandemic with the coverage of vaccines and measures, the global situation of this disease was controlled while immunized people were protected from severe symptoms. Even Covid-19 is still keeping making various strains, the mutants tend to cause less severe symptoms. People around the world therefore gradually come back to their New Normal lives.
Likewise in Thailand, disease control measures are loosened one after another such as Thailand Pass cancellation and the declaration of 77 provinces of Thailand lowering the level of control into surveillance areas (green code), allowing businesses to operate normally since the first of July 2022. Recently, the National Communicable Disease Committee has considered shifting Covid-19 status from dangerous communicable disease to precautious communicable disease. These policies can point out that tourism and hospitality industry is being recovered little by little. An economy analysis center ttb analytics forecasts that the number of domestic travelers in Thailand will increase 160% compared to the same period of the previous year. This will expand the revenue from tourism in Thailand over 200%. There is also a study showing that there will be more than 2 million international travelers visiting Thailand in the first half of year 2022, making a 1.14 hundred billion THB cash flow.
Dusit Thani College, as an educational institute which provides bachelor and master programs specialized in hospitality businesses under the umbrella of Dusit International, has prepared an organizational development for the return of growth in tourism and hospitality industry as well as for the descent of determination to develop this knowledge. The college has flagged 4 missions that aim to prepare readiness for students and college members: Sustainability, Integration, Digitalization, and Internationalization.
“According to many surveys, Thailand is still one of the most popular destinations for tourists around the world. The educational sector therefore plays an important role in creating skillful workers who are equipped with latest knowledge and international standards to mobilize Thailand’s tourism and hospitality industry towards the future,” said Miss Frouke Gerbens, Rector of Dusit Thani College. “With our specialty, Dusit Thani College has dedicated to excellence as a center of tourism, hotel, and hospitality education in ASEAN by adhering to our 4 missions which are Sustainability – a sustainable improvement that will focus on both optimizing the usage of resources and developing human resources, Integration – a collaboration among curricula and internal departments as well as external organizational partnership, Digitalization – an adaptation of technology in learning and working, and Internationalization – a development of bilingual and international curricula that cultivate international mindsets in students with an aim to be a leader in ASEAN level.”
The 4 missions are not only reinforcing the better quality of education but also a part of overall organizational development, from students to staff. Dusit Thani College sees that to develop readiness of tourism and hospitality industry to reopen for domestic and inbound travelers needs a sustainable holistic enhancement from upstream to downstream, so it needs to increase the quality of human capital from the foundation, by education. The college aims to deepen and broaden the skills of instructors and staff to equip students with theoretical and practical expertise that eventually leads to the development of tourism and hospitality industry in national and international levels.
