Microsoft and Dusit International partner to equip hospitality workforce with 21st century skills

Microsoft Thailand and Dusit International, a major hospitality management group, have partnered to develop and nurture a strong hospitality workforce with 21st century skills that will be vital to the growth of Thailand’s tourism industry. The partnership also aims to further support Thailand’s tourism industry by supplying a enough hospitality specialists to meet increasing tourism demands, provide career opportunities in the industry to students in remote, rural areas, and raise the standards in hospitality education.

 

Source: Microsoft. The Dusit Thani Hotel School.

Consistently listed as one of the world’s top tourist destinations, Thailand recorded a total of 24.77 million tourist arrivals from January to December 2014. Thailand’s tourism industry aims to receive 28 million visitors in 2015 and generate an estimated THB1.35 trillion*. 

The partnership will see the upcoming Dusit Thani Hotel School, which will open in August 2015, equip its educators and students with Microsoft’s cloud-based productivity tool, Office 365 for Education, and Windows tablets that will enhance the classroom experience. Office 365 for Education services are designed to support the school’s e-learning system, with features such as Microsoft Office Online (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, OneNote, Calendar and Outlook that can be accessed, edited, saved and shared online), as well as Skype for virtual class and group meetings. All of the features can be managed by one administrator through the unified administrator experience by Office 365 for Education. 

The new Dusit Thani Hotel School, Thailand’s first hospitality school based on ASEAN Common Competency Standards for Tourism Professionals, will be able to accommodate up to 4,000 students per year at its state-of-the-art facility. Enabled by technology, the school will focus on three concepts namely: creating a paperless, sustainable environment, digital learning, and distance learning. 

Through the integration of Office 365 for Education and Windows tablets in both the teaching and learning processes, the Dusit Thani Hotel School aims to empower budding tourism and hospitality professionals with technology skills that are relevant in the 21st century and essential to compete in the ASEAN Economic Community. 

To create a paperless, sustainable environment, students and educators will utilise e-books and OneNote for electronic note-taking, Microsoft PowerPoint presentations of lectures with digital ink, as well as electronic assignments and examinations. On the digital learning front, Office 365 for Education will encourage greater collaboration amongst students and educators through the use of OneNote, SharePoint and Yammer; and enable knowledge transfer where students will have opportunities to learn from the best in industry through Microsoft’s Skype for Business video conferencing function. Students and educators will also be encouraged to present concepts and ideas through animations and simulations via Sway. 

Students in remote, rural areas will have opportunities to enhance their employability and develop a career in the tourism industry through technology-enabled vocational and theoretical classes. Specifically, students will have access to online education materials and view recorded training classes and demonstrations via OneDrive for Business and SharePoint. 

Chanin Donavanik, CEO, Dusit International, said, “2015 marks a significant year for Thailand’s tourism industry and it is crucial that we develop and nurture home grown hospitality talent to support the growth of one of Thailand’s key economic drivers. Through the extension of our partnership with Microsoft, one that traces back to over 20 years, we are integrating Microsoft’s technology in the teaching and learning processes at the Dusit Thani Hotel School. This partnership will raise the standards in hospitality education, enable aspiring hospitality professionals throughout Thailand to pursue a career in the hospitality industry, and build world-class hospitality talent with 21st Century skills.” 

Beth Watson, Education Director, Public Sector, Microsoft Asia Pacific, said, “The partnership with Dusit International exemplifies our shared vision of using technology to enable students in the Asia Pacific to do more and achieve more. Through our joint efforts, we will help equip students with the critical skills they need to cope in an increasingly mobile and dynamic world while building a skilled hospitality workforce to support the growth of one of Thailand’s core industries. The partnership also speaks volumes of the trust that Dusit International has in the quality of our s services and solutions, as well as the security and privacy that Microsoft is able to provide.” 

In addition to enabling productivity and collaboration in education at the Dusit Thani Hotel School, Microsoft Office 365 is also preferred for its security and privacy standards including ISO 27001 and European Union certifications. Microsoft is also among the first group of companies to sign the K-12 Student Privacy Pledge, committing to never sell student information, never behaviourally target advertising, and to use student data for authorised education purposes alone. 

Microsoft is also the first major cloud provider to adopt the world’s first international standard for the protection of Personally Identifiable Information (PII) in the public cloud, ISO/IEC 27018, which prohibits the use of PII for advertising. 

Microsoft Office 365 is already used by 1,000 Dusit International employees across its chain of 24 hotels around the world. In addition to Office 365, Dusit International also utilises Microsoft’s SQL Server database management solution to enable its chain of hotels and resorts to securely store guest information, while the ERP (enterprise resource planning) software Microsoft Dynamics NAV provides a data-driven operations platform that keep the group abreast of every situation.

*Tourism Authority of Thailand

Need more context? Read the WorkSmart Asia blog post about Thailand's popularity as a business event destination.