Keywords

1 Introduction

Tourism across the globe has increased progressively and has emerged as a large employment creator. According to a recent WTTC (2015) report, the tourism and travel industry had a turnover of US$ 7.6 trillion (10 % of global GDP) and provided 277 million jobs (one in 11 jobs) in 2014. The United Nations World Tourism Barometer (2015) states that the number of international tourists (overnight visitors) reached 1,138 million in 2014, or 51 million more than in 2013. It further states an increase of 4.7 % during the fifth consecutive year of above average growth since the 2009 economic crisis. The World Travel and Tourism Council (2015) forecasts that over the next 10 years, travel and tourism will contribute US$ 11 trillion (US$ 3.4 trillion directly) and support 347 million jobs around the world (126 million directly—over 25 million more direct jobs than in 2013). The report stresses that the growth in employment in travel and tourism at over 4 % per year for the next 10 years will bring about enormous development across the world and emphasizes the need for providing suitable talent to the sector.

The African continent presents impressive growth trends in travel and tourism. The continent’s average growth rate of more than 5 % over the past 15 years compared to a global average of 3.3 % presents a clear case of its increasing contribution to the world’s economy. Between 2011 and 2015, seven out of the 10 fastest growing economies in the world were in Africa: Ethiopia (8.1 %), Mozambique (7.7 %), Tanzania (7.2 %), Congo (7 %), Ghana (7 %), Zambia (6.9 %), and Nigeria (6.8 %); the others were China (9.5 %), India (8.2 %), and Vietnam (7.2).

Although tourism in Rwanda can be traced back to the early twentieth century, its evolution went through different stages (Booth and Briggs 2004; ORTPN 2005; Shachley 2005; Williamson 2001). Due to the genocide in 1994, like many other sectors even the tourism sector in Rwanda was shaken at a very high level. After 1994, the country depended a lot on foreign aid as its economy started recovering and the government identified tourism as one of the tools to boost it (Mazimpaka 2007). This required a number of strategies, as the country was competing with established tourism regions such as Tanzania and Kenya (Government of Rwanda 2002, 2006; ORTPN 2004; OTF Group 2004). Owing to a number of major initiatives and policies, the tourism industry in Rwanda has achieved considerable growth and contributed significantly to its economy. This growth is evident in the increasing number of international tourists, especially for attractions like mountain gorillas, the natural rain forest at Nyungwe, and the Akagera National Park besides great lakes like Kivu and Muhazi (Gatsinzi and Donaldson 2010).

Recent statistics show tourism as the country’s top export income earner and a pillar of Rwanda’s growing economy (Matsangou 2015). According to the same source, tourism revenues in Rwanda jumped from around US$ 132 million in 2006 to US$ 282 million in 2012. The total investment in this sector almost tripled from around US$ 117 million in 2011 to US$ 324 million in 2012. The number of foreign visitors crossed the one-million mark in 2012. Reputed international carriers such as KLM, Turkish Airlines, and Qatar Airways have extended their operations to Kigali. Famous hotel groups such as Hilton, Marriott, and Radisson Blue are starting operations in Rwanda contributing to an increase from around 650 rooms in 2000 to 5,000 rooms in 2010 (RDB 2012) and 6,500 rooms currently (Matsangou 2015). The growth in this industry translates into a need for a workforce to perform duties related to handling the increasing demand for professional services, especially in hotels and restaurants. With its commitment to ecotourism, the responsibility of preparing human resources with necessary skills has been magnified (RDB 2012). For the hotel industry in Rwanda, the increasing demand of developing human capital through training and development programs has also become evident. In modern scenarios of managing businesses, those organizations that rely on the capacity building of their employees have higher chances of surviving in a business environment which changes over time (Jessy 2010).

2 The Problem and the Purpose

Different studies have shown that in developing countries having qualified personnel in the hotel industry is a big challenge. Butler (2008) points at the unavailability of quality workforce at different skill levels. In his study, he stresses that labor shortages and their impact on the industry in almost every geographic location are consistently among the most difficult challenges noted by hotel owners and managers. Rwanda is no exception. The Rwanda Development Board’s report (2012) argues that in many institutions in the hotel industry in Rwanda there is a persistent challenge of finding requisite numbers of qualified personnel in numbers and quality. At the same time, most of the hotel owners feel that a well-trained manpower can contribute to their institutions’ effectiveness. Though many studies have been conducted in the area of human resource management practices, especially in training of employees, there is a lack of studies in the hospitality industry in Rwanda, which defines the research gap to be filled in this area. Kigali, as the capital of Rwanda, accommodates many hotels in the country and therefore the research questions addressed in this chapter are as follows: What is the level of training and development activities in the hotels in Kigali? To what extent do managers appreciate the performance of trained employees in the hotels in the city? And to what extent do the opportunities of training and development activities offered to the employees contribute to increased services that they offer to customers in the hospitality industry in Rwanda? Training of employees is done by organizations to enhance their understanding of the job and to increase their productivity on the job by comparing it to their level of performance before they received training. Employee performance is seen from the perspective of employees’ ability to realize job-related goals both in terms of quantity and quality. This study aims at providing an answer to the often debated issue of whether training of employees leads to their better performance both in the perceptions of employees themselves as well as in their managers’ views.

3 The Influence of Training and Development on Employees’ Performance

Business managers who want to increase the overall performance of their businesses due to the knowledge and skills attained by employees through their training resort to human resource management practices (Akhter et al. 2013). Numerous examples in literature indicate that training and development programs such as human resource management practices can help organizations to develop, especially due to improved employee performance (Addison and Belfield 2004; Bradler et al. 2013; Gonchkar 2012; Kazan and Gumus 2013; Saleem and Kurshid 2014; Uysal 2014; Vermeeren et al. 2014). In a broad sense, one reason for developing human resources is to equip individuals with necessary skills and help them perform their duties, which finally adds to the overall performance of a business. Within this framework, organizations should make good use of their personnel capabilities. A vital role of training employees in organizations is that apart from improving their performance, they are also given an opportunity to position themselves as far as global competition is concerned (Benedicta 2010; Connie 2009). This explains the significant difference between organizations which mobilize resources in terms of budgets for training their employees and those which do not. Another dimension where businesses benefit from training their employees is that the employees feel valued and this leads to increased job satisfaction (Dearden et al. 2006); employees then feel motivated to do their jobs (Khan 2012). When investigating the impact of training on employee performance in the world of growing uncertainty, Bakan (2009) concludes that employee skills have a fundamental role in the success of a business. For a business, training employees help in increasing performance, and for employees, it assists them by providing professional competence and tapping into their potential, thereby making them feel able to do their future jobs. A study by Jones et al. (2009) about the relationship between training, job satisfaction, and workplace performance in Great Britain, shows that employee training and development influence workplace performance directly. More recent research demonstrates that competitiveness relies on performance, which is in turn very closely linked to training and development (Khan et al. 2012). According to Hoque (2012), the magnitude of training and development enhances employee effectiveness. An organization does not only need money, materials, supplies, equipment, and ideas about the service or products to function effectively, but an important value also has to be attached to the people who run the enterprise for them to be able to cope with changes and perform well, for this training serves as a useful tool (Sultana et al. 2012).

4 The Context of the Study: The Hotel Industry in Rwanda

Desk research, mainly based on documents by the Rwanda Development Board (RDB 2012; Matsangou 2015), shows that the hospitality industry in Rwanda grew significantly from 650 rooms in 2000 to 5,000 rooms in 2010 and 6,500 rooms in 2015. With this growth rate, significant efforts have been made by the Government of Rwanda to create facilities for training the staff as a way of responding to the need for human resources in this important industry. Rwanda’s tourism policy made it mandatory that the country’s hotel industry should contribute 2 % of its revenue toward providing education and training facilities in the sector. It is in this regard that training institutions such as Integrated Polytechnics and Regional Centers (IPRCs) and Technical and Vocational Educational Trainings (TVETs) have been created. The Rwanda Development Board is also assisting in offering training for hotel employees, especially in customer care services. RDB’s initiative to rank hotels motivates hotel owners and managers to provide training to their employees. This helps hotels to be competitive and facilitates high scoring as compared to their competitors. As a result of this, at the end of 2012 there were about 35 hotels ranked from 1 star to 5 stars (RDB 2012).

5 The Need for Training of Employees in the Hotel Industry

Studies have shown that training of employees in the hotel industry is very crucial. The need for training of employees in this sector especially in Rwanda comes from the fact that the country is still in the early stages of developing its travel and tourism sector . In fact, the Ministry of Trade and Industry (2009) showed a shortage of manpower in the hospitality sector. In this regard, the country thought of a number of measures including human capital development policies across the country as a way of responding to growing needs: the quality of tourism and hospitality professionals including hotel employees, waiters, guides, and other key personnel.

The training of employees in the hotel industry has also been a priority in neighboring countries, as policymakers and managers are aware of the benefits of developing human capital skills and how this helps organizations to grow in this industry. In Uganda , the National Development Plan recognized that providing employees with necessary skills is one of the ways to help hotels develop, especially by resorting to in-service staff training and this led to initiating the Uganda Hotel and the Tourism Training Institute (Mwaura and Ssekitoleko 2012). In order to strengthen the quality of services rendered by employees in the hospitality industry in another country in East Africa, Tanzania , a new mechanism based on human resource management practices has been introduced recently to help organizations in this area to develop. This mechanism is the launch a new Certified Apprenticeship Program in Hotel Operations in Dar es Salaam (ILO 2014) with the aim of enhancing skills among employees and entrepreneurs . In the same way, there have been many efforts for developing human capital in Kenya , as policymakers wanted the development of the hospitality industry to have its foundation in employee skills. For this, it created training institutions and organizations investing considerable amounts of money for upgrading the skills of employees in the hotel industry (Sindiga 1994). However, when the country is compared to others in the region, research shows that there are gaps in terms of skills possessed by employees in the hospitality industry, and this has an overall impact on employees in general and on businesses in particular (IPAR 2009). It is therefore obvious that developing a business in such an industry requires investing in human capital development in order to have skilled employees who perform their tasks professionally.

In other parts of the world developing businesses in the hotel industry through the training of employees has proved to be very real in terms of enhancing their capabilities and strengthening a business’s competitive advantage (Sommerville 2007). In fact, the important skills that employees get from training are related to what to do and how to do it. Throughout the training , employees are exposed to different techniques which give them an opportunity to be familiar with their jobs. This helps them to better understand their work and it raises their self-motivation and self-confidence (Sommerville 2007). A study conducted in Karachi (Pakistan) by Afaq and Khan (2009) in this area sought to establish a relationship between employees’ factors of training (including age, gender, experience, time spent on training) and measures of performance (including work safety, job preparedness, hotel hygiene, physical maintenance of rooms, interaction with guests, preparation for serving customers in different ways). It found that employees who had been trained performed better. Recommendations were drawn about the training needs assessment for hotel employees and for providing adequate training for targeted employees. A study done in China by Yang (2010) also investigated employee training in the hotel industry and showed that employees’ self-confidence and motivation were skills acquired for better completing their tasks and as a way of providing a good channel of communication between the management and employees. In addition to this, training and development, on-the-job training, training design, and delivery style of employees are important for organizational performance (Ghafoor et al. 2011). The survival of a hotel depends on the availability and quality of training provided to its employees (Ameeq-ul-Ameeq and Furqan 2013). A study conducted in Ghana showed that enhanced customer services were a result of training of employees while on their job (Asebey et al. 2012). Research has also shown the effect of training and development of employees on their performance, but little is known about the efforts that have been made in the hotel industry in Rwanda in the area of training employees and the extent to which the level of training and development of employees has contributed to their performance in the hotel industry. Therefore, this study fills this gap by contributing with knowledge about the role of training and development programs in the hotel industry and to what degree the efforts invested in this particular area have an influence on employee performance.

6 Methodology

This is a descriptive study which applied quantitative tools to establish a relationship between training and development programs and employee performance. The study primarily used a structured questionnaire to gather primary data; this was supplemented with secondary data collected from institutions such as the Rwanda Development Board and the Ministry of Trade and Industry. Human resource managers and other employees of hotels in Kigali responded to the questionnaire. Though there were 18 ranked hotels in Kigali ranging from 2 stars to 5 stars, it was decided to restrict the study to 3-star to 5-star hotels to make it more focused so as to determine a relationship between training efficiency and employee performance. This was motivated by the assumption that in these organizations training and development programs would be vital and that these organizations will also have human resource managers.

The sample was determined using Slovin’ s formula (Almeda et al. 2010) with a margin error of 5 % and a confidence level of 95 %. This formula is written as \( n = \frac{N}{{1 + N(e^{\hat{}} 2)}} \) where N = total population, n = sample size, e = error margin (0, 05). However, this formula was only applied for 557 employees, and this resulted in 476 of them (85.5 %) being selected to participate in the study. The study also involved hotel managers and human resource officers and considering that their number was small and that they were very crucial for the study, they were all (20) considered, which made the number of respondents 496. Therefore, the questionnaire for assessing the level of training and development was administered to 476 employees, while the questionnaire for assessing employees’ performance was administered to managers and human resource officers only. Four hundred and sixty questionnaires were returned and which could be used for data analysis (with a 96.6 % response rate) and all 20 questionnaires were returned from managers and human resource officers (making it a 100 % response rate). The questionnaire was based on a Likert scale with a 4-point classification (1–4) (Rensis 1932) with response alternatives allowing respondents to show whether they ‘strongly agree,’ ‘agree,’ ‘disagree,’ or ‘strongly disagree’ with indicators used to measure the study variables.

7 Results

7.1 Availability of Training and Development Opportunities

In order to study the availability of training and development activities in hotels, it was felt necessary to get the employees’ views about existing training and development activities in their institutions as this should be the starting point for new employees. This was measured in indicators like whether a hotel had a training and development policy which was applicable to all employees and whether employees were assisted in acquiring technical knowledge and skills through training. The respondents’ views are summarized in Table 11.1.

Table 11.1 Employees’ perceptions about the training and development policy (n = 460)
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The results show that there was a very high level of training of employees in some indicators, while for some others, the level of training was medium. This has implications which are in line with the idea that most of these are ranked hotels which invest efforts in the training and development of employees. Though the level of training was not the same in all the hotels, it is worth noticing that the difference was slight when it comes to considering the rank of the hotel.

7.2 Employees’ Perceptions About the Level of Introduction to the Job

The respondents’ views show appreciation about the level of introductory training in hotels, its usefulness, and the value attached to it by managers and employees. Moreover, the respondents found hotels’ norms and values to be well explained to new employees during the introductory training which was also found to be of sufficient duration. It was also learnt that the senior management took an interest in and spent time with the new staff during introductory training (Table 11.2).

Table 11.2 Employees’ perceptions about introductory training (n = 460)
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Employees’ views on introductory training of new employees show that hotel managers do their best to make this practice vital in their institutions. In fact, a lot of value is attached to the overall aim of introducing new employees to the company’s mission, objectives, goals, and different practices in the hotel industry in Kigali. It is also worth noting that the rank of a hotel does not make a big difference to the introductory training as the variation in the mean from 3-star to 5-star hotels is very small.

7.3 Training Quality

The results of an assessment of the quality of training and development is given in Table 11.3.

Table 11.3 Employees’ views about training quality
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The quality of training in the selected hotels was very satisfying as indicated by the mean scores for training quality indicators: From the first to the last indicator, employees appreciated the quality of the training. Though the mean score seems to be high from 3-star to 4-star hotels as far as employees’ appreciation of the quality of training is concerned, there is no significant difference in the quality of training which can be associated with its rank.

7.4 Post-Training Practices and Behavior

An attempt was made to assess whether supervisors encourage employees to share what they have learned during training with other employees, whether employees who use their training are given preference for new assignments or, for instance, if job aids (resources or technology) are available on the job to support what the employees learned during the training (Table 11.4).

Table 11.4 Employees’ views on post-training practices and behavior (n = 460)
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It is not enough to design a training package for employees and remain inactive once they come back from the training. Instead, it is important to put to use the skills that the employees got during the training. Perceptions of employees show that there are very interesting practices among the hotel managers and supervisors in terms of what they do when employees come back from their training as they can be assigned new duties and given opportunities to apply new methods and techniques which they learned in the training sessions. This is important because when employees are not given such opportunities it becomes difficult for them to understand why such training was organized and they might become demotivated.

7.5 Overall Level of Training and Development

It was found that the level of training and development programs in the selected hotels was significant and high, which shows that the hotel industry in Rwanda is taking care in preparing its human resources to meet the challenges of performance. This is also in line with the will of hotel managers and owners who are committed to maximizing customer care services as the hotel industry strives for growth which is in keeping with the growth in tourism in Rwanda. It can also be observed that the initiative of the Rwanda Development Board to rank the hotels every year makes it believe that hotel owners and managers are eager to have competent and professional employees who can be a competitive advantage. The Rwanda Skills Survey done by the RDB (2012) states that developing and enhancing the skills of the workforce is a critical component of this strategy. The strategy is underpinned by the assumption that a better match between employee skills and the skills required in the workplace make for a more productive industry. It also believes that effective education and training is an essential component of a sustainable industry.

7.6 Employees’ Performance in Hotels

The second objective of this study was to understand the level of employees’ performance from the managers’ point of view in the selected hotels. These were measured through employees’ performance indicators such as initiative and confidence, communication, achievement drive, having business acumen, respect, commercial focus, team building, client focus, and time management. The descriptive statistics, means, and standard deviations of managers’ perceptions about employees’ performance are given in Table 11.5.

Table 11.5 Managers’ and human resource officers’ views about employee performance (n = 20)
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Table 11.5 shows high levels of performance among employees in general in terms of communication, achievement drives, human relations and client focus, building spirit, initiative, confidence, and time management. It is worth noticing, however, that for some performance indicators, differences in mean scores are associated with the rank of the hotel. For example, the level of performance is higher in a 5-star hotel than in a 3-star or 4-star hotel when it comes to employees being able to stick to goals and strive to achieve them with enthusiasm and determination or when managers view their [employees] time management abilities in terms of being time bound and understand the consequences that not following the time frame will have on the hotel.

7.7 Significance of the Relationship Between the Level of Training and Development Programs and Employee Performance

The overall objective of this study was to establish the effect of training and development programs on employee performance in the hotel industry in Kigali and to investigate the level of training and development programs in the hotel industry and their relationship with employee performance from the managers’ point of view. The computation of the correlation coefficient (r) between the study variables gave the results which are summarized in Table 11.6.

Table 11.6 Effect of training and development of employees on their performance
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  1. a.

    Predictor (constant): availability of training and development opportunities, level of introductory training, training quality, post-training practices and behavior.

  2. b.

    Dependent variable: employee performance.

The r-value (r = 0.759, sig = 0.000) in Table 11.6 indicates that there is a significant correlation between the level of training and development programs and the level of performance of employees in hotels in Kigali city. The significant value indicates that the two variables (status of training and development programs and the level of performance of employees) are significantly correlated (significance is less than 0.05, which is the maximum significance value to declare a significant relationship). The R-square value in the model summary shows how much of the variance in the dependent variable (employee performance) is explained by the independent variable (training and development) which includes a total of training and development opportunities, level of introductory training , training quality, post-training practices, and behavior. The value 0.549 explains that 54.9 % of the variance is explained by staff training and development programs and the unexplained variability equals 45.1 %. It is worth concluding that there is a positive significant relationship between the level of training and development activities and the level of performance of employees in the hotels, and this is justified by the fact that both training and performance were found to satisfy the perspectives of employees and managers (and human resource officers), respectively.

8 Conclusions, Recommendations, and Limitations of the Study

This research was conducted in the hotel industry in Kigali. Though there have been other studies which have investigated the relationship between training and development of employees with their performance in various areas including the hotel industry, little was known about the extent to which hotel owners and managers value important human resource management practices of training and development programs and apply them to help employees cope with their duties. Therefore, this study approached this gap and showed and explained one of the reasons behind the fast growth of the hotel industry in Rwanda . While available sources show that efforts have been made by the government to address the issue of a skills gap in the hotel industry through the Rwanda Development Board and by creating an environment to deal with this problem, this study shows the extent to which the hotel industry has embraced this idea by applying training and development policies to make employees perform well in their duties. The results of the study therefore show the basis for growth in the hotel industry in Rwanda, which is investing in training employees and which gives the industry a chance to compete with other businesses in the region. The nation is aiming to capitalize on the goal of making Rwanda a world-renowned tourist destination and the expectation is that it shall be receiving a huge influx of travelers and tourists; the numbers are expected to cross 1.5 million. Rwanda is making deliberate efforts at development to make tourism more vibrant and travel in Rwanda more pleasant.

The study investigated the level of training and development of employees in hotels in Kigali. In general, employees’ views showed that these programs are available in hotels and that they participate in designed training and development programs. Considering the low mean scores for some indicators, which can be interpreted as weaknesses, some recommendations are offered for improvement. For this, the senior management needs to express their expectations about employees by spending necessary time with new employees during the introductory training. It is also important to give employees opportunities to participate in a training needs analysis, and this should be given primary importance so that organizations can fully achieve their desired training goals. Considering the importance of an interaction between line managers and lower level employees, this practice is important as it will allow both parties to communicate and discuss issues and problems related to the employees’ technical skills. When they come from training, employees should be given opportunities to reflect about what they can do to improve the quality of their performance. In addition, there should be a proper mechanism of monitoring and follow-up of employees’ performance after the training to assess whether the training has been effective or not, and training programs should be linked with employees’ promotions so that these programs help increase employee motivation which will ultimately result in better performance.

As for the limitations of this study, it is important to mention that the study only involved 3-star to 5-star hotels in Kigali. This might have had an influence on the results as other hotel establishments in the same city such as those with low ranks or those which were not ranked might have a different scenario in the context of staff development policies, which also has an effect on staff performance. In the same manner, it is possible that hotels in cities other than Kigali might have other realities. The study also used quantitative and secondary data. Thus, qualitative data through interviews and focus group discussions provided another angle for understanding training and development programs in hotels. This is a promising avenue for future research.