Catering industry: A Lack of Training Damages City Image


Source: Macau Daily News


Catering industry: A lack of training damages city image


The recent arbitrary charges and poor service attitudes that flocked the social network caused social concerns. Vice President Feng Kin Fook of United Association of Food and Beverage Merchants of Macau admitted that there is a decline in the level of catering services, mainly due to a lack of human resources, high staff turnover and a lack of training. This will affect Macau as an international tourism city. The industry should pay attention to this issue and take immediate measures to strengthen the frontline staff training. He also hoped the government should further emphasize human resource aspect to allow the industry to dispatch manpower sufficiently, increase resources for staff training to enhance the quality of services.


Foreign workers do not wish to stay in Macau


Mr. Fung said that the current human resource shortage issue is not caused by local people alone. Foreign workers would also choose to leave Macau after contract termination. After the Lunar New Year, in particularly, the pressure caused by manpower shortages and lack of rest in some restaurants lead to the poor service level. The working environment of some restaurants has given the employees an impression of lack of belonging. All these can be blamed on a lack of training. Those incident is a sign of alarm for the industry that must be dealt with and implement immediate measures. If problem is not solved within short period of time, city image will be damaged.

He stated that the catering industry suffered from unfavorable business, price inflation, high rent, business pressure, high overheads, and unable to increase training resources. Every year, the government will subsidize the catering industry to organize training activities to enhance the professionalism of the industry. It is expected that the administration will increase its resources to assist the industry in retraining and lowering the quota for foreign workers. During Chinese New Year, as most restaurants would close for business, but for those operating, especially around the tourist attraction areas, will be too busy and cannot cope with large numbers of tourists. This created pressure on the workers. The government should think about how to divert tourists to different districts and drive the community economy.


File a complaint for any unfair experience


He believes that the current complaint cases from the catering industry are only an individual event. The public and tourists can file a complaint when they encountered any unfair consumer experience. The Consumer Council will deal with the complaint cases fairly. The name of the restaurant will be published if they are determined that the shop has done wrong. This should give a deterrent effect.

Asked if such incident will affect Macao to apply for “Gourmet Capital?” He replied that they should be treated separately. The industry welcomed the government to apply Macau as a “Gourmet Capital.” He believes that a success in the application will increase the attractiveness of Macau. Thereby investors and industry will be more confident in the future of catering industry. In the long run, it will help Macau to attract more international customers.






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