Shahid Hamid is the Executive Director of the Dhaka Regency hotel and resorts, one of the 5 five-star hotels currently operating in Dhaka. A post graduate of Dhaka University he’s been in the hotel business for most of his professional life, covering a wide range of appointments from project coordinator for the development of a brand-new Pan Pacific hotel in Dhaka then becoming the pre-opening sales manager and part of the management team before moving on to become assistant general manager in 1990. Not all of his experience has been in Bangladesh though, in 1985 he was funded by his company to attend the Cornell Hotel School summer course and then in 1992 went back to undertake the general manager’s programme. He spent time in Australia at the Pan Pacific Gold Coast and then on to Canada and the Pan Pacific in Vancouver.
Returning to Bangladesh in 1996 his next appointment was running the BRAC Centre Inn on a management and operational contract. This is an interesting property owned by the Bangladesh Rural Advancement Committee BRAC one of the largest NGOs and demonstrates the sense of commitment that Shahid has to his country and to the industry. In 2003 he was appointed the general manager and subsequently executive director of the privately owned Sarina Hotel before moving on to his current post. The Dhaka Regency hotel is owned by the British Bangladesh Investment Group who are non-resident Bangladeshis investing back into their country. He has recently been elected as Chairman of the PATA Bangladesh chapter and is a member of the PATA board as well as being on the executive committee of the Bangladesh International Hotel Association & SKAL Bangladesh. He was the chief coordinator of Visit Bangladesh year 1992 for the promotion of Bangladesh tourism. He is a Fellow of the Institute of Hospitality.
Bangladesh does not yet feature widely as an international tourist destination, yet the range and number of developments in new hotel openings especially in Dhaka the capital, is an indicator of the growing importance that tourism is playing in the national economy. How then is the industry developing and what are the key challenges?
The key challenges that Shahid has identified will probably resonate with many hoteliers around the world who feel that they have a similar range of challenges to face. However they’re not operating in Bangladesh which in turn has its own challenges. As in many countries hoteliers feel that the government only provides limited support for tourism development, and is not often seen as a mainstream activity. Processes of government bureaucracy often hamper developments. For example in Bangladesh planners do not always link tourism to the tremendous opportunity the industry provides for poverty alleviation and employment. As essentially a people industry that requires skilled staff at an entry-level, the opportunity to provide skills training and employment in this growth sector is often overlooked. The need for active planning therefore is not just in property developments but is in the development of a skilled workforce. Bangladesh is a net exporter of Labour and is the 7th largest country in the world in terms of its overseas remittance back home. This further exacerbate the skill shortage problems in effective creating a “brain and skills drain”.
The private sector have a strong role in tourism developments and on the positive side new international hotel brands are entering the Bangladesh market, such as Le Meridien, Marriott, Holiday Inn, Amari, Novotel and Intercontinental. In response to this the Bangladesh Tourist Board is working on new developments with private sector industry leaders.
While these new developments are positive indicators of the development of the industry they also put very significant pressure on the existing skills base. The current estimate is that by 2020 the number of new entrants into the hospitality labour market will need to be of the order of 40,000, where the existing universities and private institutions only graduate something of a few thousand a year. This then puts pressure on the existing hoteliers as new openings tend to attract staff from the existing hotels which in turn creates further shortages and more pressure on the skills base.
Other challenges to hoteliers in Bangladesh are in areas that in many of the other parts of the world would be not be challenges at all. The availability of technology and the support for that technology as well as simple things such as routine fixtures and fittings and hotel supplies all largely have to be imported. That increases the cost and also the vagaries of supply lines which in turn can impact on the service to the guest.
These challenges have to be seen in the local situation and it is the culture which can on occasion present some interesting issues. As a hotel general manager especially of a five-star property the relationship between the staff and the manager will be governed by the cultural deference the staff pay to that position. Therefore they are less likely to engage in discussion or indeed come forward with ideas for innovation and efficiency. The position the general manager holds can make it difficult to interact and to motivate the staff in the way that would be common in other countries. This leads to very complex organisational nuances that a non-Bangladeshi expatriate manager may find difficult to understand.
One thing the industry in Bangladesh can provide is dignity of labour. The skills that are developed amongst employees can give status and prestige to the workers but as with many other countries a career in hotel management is not necessarily regarded as aspirational or prestigious. In a country developing as rapidly as Bangladesh these perceptions are fortunately changing due to improvements in education and less obvious corruption.
One obvious way of motivating staff is to provide career progression opportunities and training and this is where Shahid sees that he can make a positive contribution to the new generation and provide hope and aspiration to those seeking a career in the industry. In turn this can make a real contribution to Bangladeshi society through social emancipation and improvements to poverty alleviation. Bangladeshis have an international reputation as hard workers but they often need training, development and guidance to be able to achieve the highest levels. It is in the development of a new initiative, the Regency Hospitality Training Institute, that Shahid intends to start to address these matters by providing a legacy in return for the opportunities that have been given to him throughout his career.
When asked for the one wish as a general manager, his response will be echoed almost to a man by general managers across the world, and that is “to be able to run a hotel, completely freely without interference, to be able to achieve excellence”.
About the author
Professor Peter Jones, is the Dean of the eHotelier Academy. With a distinguished career in hospitality, education and training, Peter has been involved with national and international projects with clients involved in hospitality education. Peter is a Director the Edge Hotel School and of Hotel Future, a new education and training initiative in Greater Manchester and is a Visiting Professor at the University of Derby. He was also awarded a Member of the Order of the British Empire for services to the hospitality industry.
