Dubai: The region's hospitality industry will have to find recruits from new markets because traditional recruitment markets like India and Southeast Asia are drying up, according to a hospitality community portal, Hozpitality.com.

The Dubai-based portal, which claims to be the region's first niche hospitality-focused career and networking portal, stated yesterday that more than 2 million staff would be needed by 2020.

"We see that the regional hospitality sector is on a long-term innings and despite the current economic uncertainty which may cause a medium-term slowdown, the outlook is robust as governments in the region, particularly in the Gulf are keen to diversify income sources and tourism and hospitality are major components in this strategy," said Raj Bhatt, director, Hozpitality.com.

He said it is becoming difficult to source skilled staff from traditional markets because of increasing staff absorption in those markets.