The Requirement of English Communication Skills of the Hotel Receptionists at Kamphaeng Phet Province

Abstract

The research was conducted to investigate problems and requirement of English communication skills employed by the hotel front office at Kamphaeng Phet Province. The quantitative research was manipulated for data collection to thirteen purposive samples from four hotels in Kamphaeng Phet downtown. The research instrument was a rating-scale and open-ended questionnaire. It was divided into three sections: The participant’ s demographic, English proficiency and skill requirement, and open-ended questions. It was found that the hotel receptionists in Kamphaeng Phet mostly are women, aged between 20-25 years, graduated bachelor’s degree and gain experiences in the hotel 1 – 5 years. The hotel receptionists’ lowest abilities were listening to foreigner English accents (Mean 2.77), writing a daily report and business letters in English (Mean 2.85). However, they rated speaking skill (69.24%) and listening skill (30.76%) as the most requirement of English in the workplace. Furthermore, they found themselves obstacle to reading comprehension in a tourist brochure and emails in English. At the open-ended questionnaire, the participants suggested English skill improvements, for instance, frequently made connection with foreigners (61.53%), writing messages in English (69.24%). Based on the research recommendation, a future study should be in realizing of a questionnaire preparation and an interview for qualitative data.