JEDDAH — The hospitality sector has become one of the fastest growing markets in Saudi Arabia and Hilton Worldwide is involved in it by training and hiring more Saudis to take up different positions. Hilton provides training for Saudis to become hotel managers and is optimistic that young Saudis have a bright future ahead of them, Ben Bengougam, vice president of human resources for Hilton Worldwide's European, Middle East and African operations, believes so. In an interview with the Saudi Gazette, Bengougam is convinced that Saudi youth have a promising future and looks at Saudization in the hospitality sector with optimism. “From a lot of different perspectives, we considered Saudization very challenging a few years ago, but we have made a lot of progress and we are very optimistic,” he said. “We are very optimistic, first of all, with the support of the Saudi government in terms of education, in terms of cultural programs, in terms of helping funds to develop young Saudis for our industry. We are very grateful,” he added. “We are very optimistic about the future in Saudi and the future based on Saudi talents, Saudi team members and Saudi leadership.” He pointed out that the hotel has people in different (educational) programs on different levels to provide young Saudis with skills,” he said. Last year, Hilton launched “Manager of the Future” program to train young ambitious and talented Saudis according to their interests. This was aimed at enabling young and ambitious Saudis to gain skills in how to deal with guests, customer relations, and supervising and managing staff to eventually become “general managers of our hotels,” Bengougam remarked. The training also provided them with help in developing skills in finance, security, sales and marketing. About employing Saudi females in Hilton hotels, he said, “they are very talented, very hard working. We want to hire as many Saudis as we can.” Bengougam feels that Saudis are hardworking and model employees. This is something he noticed when he visited the Kingdom a few months ago. “I was extremely positively impressed with Saudi youth, the head of human resource is a Saudi. He is very talented, educated, hardworking and a very good role model,” he said. Moreover, Bengougam dismissed observation that Saudis opt only for jobs in management positions. “Things are changing. We have young Saudis that join us to take on jobs as housekeepers, cleaners, chefs, waiters and receptionists,” he said, although majority still have the perception that working in services is not the right career for them. However, he said “I think that with the help of the Saudi government, cultural programs, schools, universities and colleges, we can overcome this and teach them that there is a career in the services sector,” he said. He added that in order to be a manager or a leader one has to pass different stages and progress from one level to another. Bengougam is responsible for human resources across the region, which includes more than 50,000 staff in 65 countries.
