Poor service delivery:Recruitment should be on merit

Musanze – Hotel managers in Musanze District have blamed owners of the institutions and other hospitality facilities for the poor services rendered to their clients.The managers say proprietors are mainly motivated by profit without consideration investment and empowering the human resource for quality service delivery.On the sidelines of the meeting with local authorities, hotel managers told The New Times that the proprietors in most cases influence the recruitment exercises, a thing they say compromises the quality of the workforce.The owners were also blamed for being exploitative by paying employees peanuts and     not giving the managers autonomy to make decisions."Proprietors should be held responsible for this mess (poor services), they bring their relatives to be employed in hotels yet they lack the expertise, this is not a sector for failures, they are only interested in making money,” one of the hotel managers who preferred not to be named revealed  Musanze, a major tourist destination, with Volcanoes National Park, home to the endangered mountain gorillas, has 17 hotels.Jean Paul Niyoniligiye, the Manager of La Palme Hotel, said lack of qualified personnel and lack of training are the major causes of poor service delivery in the hospitality sector."The issues of service delivery concern every one, hotel owners first, workers and clients, yet managers take all the blame, they don’t make certain decisions,” Niyonilingiye said  Chantal Barry, Manager of Gorilla Volcanoes Hotel, who pursued her hotelier studies in Bordeux, France, blames local institutions for the mess as their graduates lack practical skills.   "People should appreciate the progress made in this sector, we need to be positive. Clients should come expecting good services not being biased even before we serve them. Customer service concerns everyone, even clients play a role in the nature of services they get,” Barry said  The Manager of Fatima Hotel, Fr.Emmanuel Ndagimana, attributed the nature of services to incompetent workers, which he also blamed on proprietors. "The business should be taken beyond the individual’s interests, because it has an impact on the local population and foreign visitors.”  A majority of the waiters, waitresses including receptionists working in hotels in Musanze, lack the required qualifications and have never had any training regarding customer service.