The development of 21st century learning skills to enhance the performance effectiveness of convention hotel staff in Thailand

Abstract

This paper was aimed to present the guideline development of 21st Century Learning Skills for the convention hotel staff’s performance and effectiveness in Thailand. The results of the study could help to improve the performance of convention hotel staff, especially at convention hotels in Thailand. Convention hotels are used for meetings and business conventions which generate a lot of benefits to the country such as revenue, employment, cross cultural management and technological development respectively. Thus, it is necessary to understand and seek to improve the convention hotel staff’s performance in order to expand the entire scope of meetings and business conventions in Thailand.

The purpose of this study was as follows: 1) to develop each type of 21st Century Learning Skills which is necessary for hotel convention staff in Thailand, 2) to develop a structural equation model between 21st Century Learning Skills and the performance of hotel convention staff in Thailand, and 3) to develop a guideline for hotel convention staff in conjunction with those 21st Century Learning Skills which can enhance the proficiency of hotel convention staff in Thailand.

A mixed research methodology was employed in this study. The research instrument employed was a set of questionnaires distributed to 500 convention hotel customers who regularly use the convention hotel services in MICE cities which are located in the following five provinces: Bangkok, Chiang Mai, Khon Kaen, Pattaya and Phuket. Additionally, a focus group discussion was formulated to gather data from all the participants regarding the convention hotel staff’s performance in Thailand. There were nine participants from relevant fields, i.e. convention hotel staffs, convention hotel managers, government customers, private sector customers and scholars from the hospitality and human resources fields. The coding analysis that was used for the results of the focus group discussion was descriptive statistics (i.e. frequency, percentage, mean, and standard deviation) and a structural equation model was also employed for the analysis of the quantitative data.

The results of the study found that, 1) there were seven 21st Century Learning Skills that could enhance the convention hotel staff’s performance and there were four effectiveness components which resulted from those learning skills, 2) structural equation modeling techniques were applied to develop a suitable model for the 21st Century Learning Skills. The findings indicated that there was goodness of fit among the seven learning skills and four outcomes of the effectiveness components, 3) a guideline development was constructed for the convention hotel staff according to the significance level of the learning skill. The self-directed and flexible working skill was the most relevant development skill, along with job rotation and a case study training program, while, communication and collaboration skill was the least relevant development skill along with a job rotation training program.

Therefore, the development guideline for 21st Century Learning Skills to enhance the convention hotel staff’s performance and effectiveness in Thailand can be divided into the two sections of on-the-job and off-the-job training programs. However, the significance factor of each learning skill needs a different development guideline in order to best reach its performance development. This can help generate profitability not only to convention hotel businesses, but also to other related businesses and educational institutes which could ultimately produce the right people for the right jobs in the hospitality industry.