Veera Pardpattanapanich (Dusit Thani College): It is the charm, friendliness and professionalism of the Thai people that draws visitors to Thailand

We met Khun Veera Pardpattanapanich at the Dusit Thani College where we had the opportunity to discuss about the uniqueness of the College, the level of the tourism education in Thailand and the challenges after the AEC implementation, as well as the APacCHRIE conference in 2016 which Dusit Thani College managed to bring in Thailand.
 

TravelDailyNews: Dusit Thani College is one of the most recognizable internationally tourism and hospitality schools of Thailand. Which are the unique elements that make Dusit Thani College to stand out?
 

Veera Pardpattanapanich: The legend of Dusit Thani College started a few decades back. Since 1984 or 1985 – Tourism Authority of Thailand began to promote Thailand with a theme “Visit Thailand Year“. The successful of this promotion caused a shortage of professional and skill staff in hotels – from front line staff to executives. In the same time, there were many unemployed workers. Thanpuying Chanut Piyaoui who is the owner of Dusit Thani Hotel ( a renown Thai Hotel )  has her vision to open a hotel school – this is to solve the shortage of the manpower in hotel business, and to provide standard services to tourists, customers and the greatest matter is to give the opportunity to workers who seeking for a job to earn their living. A Win-Win situation! So, Dusit Thani College was established in June 1993.
 

The uniqueness of Dusit Thani College:
 

1. Own by a Thai with International Standard Services Hotel Group.

2. Quality of faculties: through training process both academic and industry.

3. Teaching and learning process: both theory and practical including systematic field training.

4. Facilities: International Standard for Practical classes.

5. Student activities and development. This is to groom students in the area of Leadership, Followership, interpersonal skills, responsibility, extra curricular activities, etc.

6. Dusit character: groom students with Dusit Character:

   D = Discipline. Good discipline, self confident, responsibility, good leader and follower

   U = Understanding. Open mind, accept comment, ability to understand each other

   S =  Socialize. Do the right thing at the right place and right time

   I = Intellectual. Observant, ingenious to solve problems, creative, well- balanced and careful

   T = Tolerance Patient, strenuous, earnest.

 

TDN: AEC is around the corner and many tourism companies and hotels wait for the free labour movement among ASEAN countries in order to hire skilled staff with higher level of foreign languages. What should Thailand do in order to be better prepared and increase its competitiveness in hospitality services in the next decade?
 

V.P.: Thailand is rich in historical, natural, cultural sites and of course food. Thai food has gained huge popularity worldwide. Shopping provides a wide range of products – whether local or imported – that are of good quality and yet affordable. But mostly, it is the charm, friendliness and professionalism of the Thai people that draws visitors to visit the country and which are the key to quality and efficiency. Thailand has highly skilled staff ranking from junior positions through to the highest executive positions, across all sectors of the hospitality industry.
 

However, what we do have to do in order to maintain our position well and improve it, is to improve our language skills, particularly in “English”. Considering that English has been the international language of tourism and commerce for decades, in general Thai people are still not good at speaking English. Thailand ranks near the bottom in an English proficiency survey. So we have to seriously improve and invest in this.
 

 

V.P.: First of all, people admire and know Dusit as a Thai Hotel brand that strongly emphasizes Thai Hospitality. So does Dusit Thani College, as we are one of Dusit family members. 
 

At our college, a “Wai and Smile” is our way of greeting. This is very different from other countries and is a uniquely Thai way of greeting. Thai are very submissive people, so it’s not difficult to fascinate and give a good first impression with a “Wai and Smile”, demonstrating the charm and friendliness in a Thai way to customers and visitors. I think this already makes us far different from others and it is not for nothing that Thailand is called the “land of smiles”, a reflection of the high marks awarded to our hospitality sector. 
 

Moreover, we perceive the importance of Thainess, and one part of that is “Thai Classical Dances” which are very unique and different. At the college, we have a Thai Classical Dance Club for students to join. Whenever we organize special events at the college or the sport day, we will add this in the itinerary for our students to show their ability and as you said “to keep and preserve the characteristic of Thainess”. 
 

In my opinion, if every institution would realize and put these or other activities concerned as the first priority, we will definitely remain a different and attractive destination.  
 

 

V.P.: This is one aspect that makes Dusit Thani College very proud. It has won the bid to host such a renowned hospitality and tourism research conference and so we can bring it to Bangkok, Thailand for the first time. This conference is most important for the academic society in Tourism and Hospitality and the network connects all of us, to not only Asia Pacific (APacCHRIE) but also to Europe through EuroCHRIE and worldwide by I-CHRIE (International CHRIE) which is the global advocate of hospitality and tourism education for schools, colleges, and universities offering programmes in hotel and restaurant management, travel and tourism management and culinary arts.
 

The 14th APacCHRIE Conference in 2016 that is hosted by Dusit Thani College will be held at the Dusit Thani Bangkok, Thailand from 11 to 13 May 2016. The theme of the conference is “Crisis Management and Business Continuity in the Tourism Industry”. A topic we feel of high relevance not just in the Asian region but globally and it refers to all types of critical situations; such as financial crisis, economic downturn, political instability, natural disaster, technological crisis, epidemic diseases, etc.
 

In addition to the main conference, ApacCHRIE annually provides undergraduate students in the fields of hospitality and tourism with an avenue (i.e., Youth Conference) where world-class educators share their knowledge with undergraduate students from different nations. Therefore, we will host a youth conference on 12-13 May 2016, also at the Dusit Thani Bangkok, Thailand. The theme of the conference in 2016 is “Crisis Management and Business Continuity in the Tourism Industry: Perceptions of the Future”.
 

The expected delegates of this prestigious conference will be over 300 world-class educators, researchers, industry leaders, partners and representatives of professional associations, government officials, and postgraduates. Given the interest in Thailand’s focus on the hospitality and tourism industries as well as being well-known as the land of smiles, entertainment, cuisine, nature and heritage, we believe there will be extra reasons to draw more delegates to attend this event in Thailand in 2016. And we will have more valued research to develop the tourism industry here.
 

TDN: What is your vision for the future of Dusit Thani College and tourism education in Thailand in general?
 

V.P.: Our vision is to be one of the top three leading international education and training institutes in Asia by the year 2020. We are working on this and I think we are not far from reaching this goal. There are several ways to rank the position and for us it is with a very clear vision of our quality. For example, our programmes were not only accredited locally by the Office for National Education Standards and Quality Assessment (Public Organization) but also internationally by The International Centre of Excellence in Tourism and Hospitality Education (THE-ICE), Australia. We are accepted as a high quality institution by receiving the honor of hosting such a renowned hospitality and tourism research conference in 2016. Recognized and well accepted by the industry, this is not gained through anything else but producing the highest caliber quality graduates. 
 

These are just some of the accomplishments that we have earned and we have never stopped developing ourselves for the delivery of high quality hospitality education.  

 

* Ms. Veera Pardpattanapanich is the Rector of Dusit Thani College and also serves on several committees such as the Committee of the College Council, Executive Committee of Dusit Executive Development Center, and the second Deputy chairperson of Association of Private Higher Education Institutes of Thailand for a two-year term.