The launch of the ASEAN Economic Community in 2015 will bring changes in the labor markets of all 10 ASEAN nations. The careers that will mainly be affected by these challenges are travel agencies, tour operators hotels and restaurants.  According to the ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement on Tourism Professionals there will be 32 positions in six labor divisions available for workers from all member countries with almost the freedom attained in the EU. And those six labor divisions cover four careers in hotel services including front office, housekeeping, food production, and food and beverage services. So four labor divisions will need an improvement in skills in the long term; especially English skills.

Actually, you might wonder why we have to focus only four of those as there are a lot of jobs in a hotel such as clerk/receptionist, bell man, tram driver, chef, waiter/waitress, pool attendant, security staff, department managers,  assistant managers, general manager, personnel director, sales events coordinators and a lot more. But to follow the ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement on Tourism Professionals, in this module, we will mainly focus on the careers that have to deal with guests, especially the ones who have need to be away from home for necessity or pleasure, there is a need for temporary accommodation raging from inns, hostels, motels, serviced apartments, and hotels. There should be qualified staff that are able to work at such establishments in order to service them all in appropriate ways, and be able to communicate with little difficulty.

So the front office or the hotel receptionist will usually be the first to talk in the following duties, which are dealing with phone calls from guests or dealing with the walk-in guests, checking in and out, including responding to complaints from the guests. The other career covered in the module is food and beverage services where we will talk about the host/hostess and waiter/waitress who work in a hotel or restaurant.