Training practices of selected multinational travel conglomerates in India

In today's fast-changing business environment, companies tend to lose competitiveness if their executives and employees cannot keep pace with advancing knowledge in their disciplines. Today's organizations are realizing how important human nature is to determine business outcomes and hence rely on training to manage increasing levels of ambiguity, risk, technical complexity, and organizational politics. This holds true for India's tourism industry as well, especially because tourism is a people-based service industry. More than in any other sector, its competitiveness and quality depend on the over 18 million people working in tourism directly or indirectly throughout the country. This accounts for 5.6% of the total employment in India (Asia Times, 2007). The importance of good skills, learning and training for the future success of the sector and of every single tourism enterprise in the country cannot be underestimated. Against this background, the paper investigates the training practices adopted by selected Multinational travel conglomerates in India.