Skills and labour markets in transition: A tourism skills inventory of Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan

The transition economies of Eastern Europe, Central and East Asia face major challenges as they seek to compete within an increasingly globalised economy. For many of them, tourism is seen as providing one of the key areas of economic opportunity. This is certainly true of the three Asian countries considered in this paper Kyrgyzstan, Mongolia and Uzbekistan. Within any economy seeking to operate competitively in the international tourism marketplace, the appropriate human resources, especially the skills, to deliver products and services of appropriate quality, are essential. This paper reports a labour market and skills study of the three Asian countries, based on two surveys of the accommodation and wider tourism sub-sectors. It identifies the key structural features of these tourism labour markets and addresses current and predicted skills shortages with respect to each of them. The paper draws conclusions with respect to the key issues facing tourism in the three countries, specifically in terms of their labour markets and skills requirements.