Malaysia hotels struggle to maintain good service amid staff shortage
HOTEL operators in Malaysia are glad for the recovery of tourism, with over 2 million arrivals in less than 4 months since borders reopened – but are also struggling to meet these elevated demands, with service quality suffering amid an industry-wide staff shortage.
Ng Pei Ning, senior sales manager of a 4-star hotel in Kuala Lumpur city centre, said the hotel now has an occupancy rate of 70 per cent to 80 per cent on normal days, and is fully booked during long weekends and school holidays.
Many corporates have already scheduled business meetings, events, company retreats and banquet dinners for the coming 6 months, she added.
However, Ng is worried about whether the hotel’s staff are able to handle such an overwhelming workload after nearly 2 years of the hotel being out of operation.
“The operations side – F&B (food and beverage), housekeeping and reception – is struggling in getting enough manpower. For now, it is still manageable as I haven’t received any complaints yet, but I heard that some of the hotels are getting bad reviews on service,” she told The Business Times.
A check of review websites showed that longer check-in times, unsatisfactory room cleanliness and a lack of housekeeping services during the stay are among the common complaints made about hotel operators in Malaysia since the border reopening in April this year.
Christina Toh, president of the Malaysian Association of Hotels, agreed that pent-up tourist demand has caught many hotel operators by surprise, and some of the hotels which are unable to cope have no choice but to compromise on service quality.
She noted that a housekeeping staff member is able to clean 16 to 18 rooms a day, depending on room size. To tackle the manpower shortage, many hotel operators have turned to hiring part-timers for housekeeping service, or offering overtime pay to staff who do not mind working longer hours.
Other than part-timers, most hotel operators also train their existing staff to multitask, such as requesting administration staff to assist at the front desk, and scheduling flexible shifts to solve daily operational problems, she added.
“To ensure the quality of service, most of the hotels are opening their inventories based on the manpower they have. This in turn causes shortage of rooms during peak periods,” said Toh.
Sri Ganesh Michiel, deputy president of the Malaysia Budget and Business Hotel Association, said that outsourcing housekeeping or F&B services to third parties is also one solutions – but this will increase operation costs, which is not viable for the recovering hotel industry.
“Some of the hotel operators have sped up their digitalisation plans to reduce the reliance on manpower, such as (having a) self check-in process and the usage of AI robots, but this is only limited to certain work. For housekeeping work and concierge service, we still need people to be there,” he added.
Within the first half of 2022, the country has already surpassed its original full-year target of welcoming 2 million international tourists, with total tourism receipts of RM8.6 billion (S$2.7 billion).
Assuming robust tourism activity in the second half of the year, Malaysia’s tourism, arts and culture minister Nancy Shukri has revised the target upwards to 4.5 million travellers this year, expecting tourism receipts to reach RM11.1 billion.
Ivan Teo, chairman of the Johor chapter of the Malaysian Association of Hotels (MAH), said most hotels in Johor Baru are enjoying a high occupancy rate of around 70 per cent during weekends, mainly supported by Singapore tourists.
“We expect the occupancy to go higher during long weekends in coming months,” he said, adding that hotels are actively hiring talent and trainees to ensure that they have sufficient staff to handle a big crowd during peak periods.
Some 4-star hotel operators are competing with 5-star hotels by offering better salaries to attract talent, he noted.
With things moving in a positive direction, Teo is confident that hoteliers will be able to resolve the manpower shortage problem in another 4 to 5 months, or even faster if China decides to lift its current travel restrictions.
“If Chinese are allowed to travel, this will boost the market’s confidence in the hospitality industry and encourage the experienced former hotel staff to return to the line that they are familiar with,” he said.
Many hotel staff either were laid off or chose to leave their jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic in 2020 and 2021. The majority of them have started their own businesses or changed career paths, and thus are not interested in returning to the hospitality industry, said Teo.
“Many of them are afraid there might be another wave of coronavirus infections, which will put their career at risk again. We need a strong catalyst to bring back market confidence in tourism growth and China’s reopening will be one of these,” he added.
