Hotels in the country are losing more and more skilled workers overseas.

The Fiji Hotels and Tourism Association says this is one of the industry’s biggest challenges at the moment.

Chief Executive, Fantasha Lockington says although programs like the  Pacific Labor Scheme generate good remittances for Fiji, it’s creating a  vacuum in the tourism industry.

“People want to be able to look out for new experiences, but it  leaves the industry, not only tourism but other industries as well,  where we are now looking to fill these gaps.”

Lockington says most of their members are now left with amateur workers who often need a lot of training.

“To fill those gaps they had to do a lot of more training, hotels  really are all about service, and if they’re spending a lot more time  and effort and money

going into more and more training then that just reduces their  ability to concentrate on some of the things that they should be  concentrating on.”

Tanoa International Hotel General Manager Daniel Roy says they are strengthening its employer-employee Relationship.

“So we’ve been working closely with the Universities in Fiji with  the likes of USP, the FNU other hospitality organizations to be  available to work with them with the skills that the hotels actually  need.”

Roy adds that trying to manage tourists during this peak period in the  industry is difficult given the lack of skilled hotel workers they are currently facing.