HR challenges on hospitality and tourism

Introduction

The importance of tourism and hospitality employment in both developed and developing countries is attested to by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC), who suggest that travel- and tourism-related activities account for over 230 million jobs, or 8.7 per cent of jobs worldwide (WTTC, 2006). However, whilst the quantity of jobs is unquestionable, the quality of many of these jobs is of great concern to academics and policy-makers alike. Despite the rhetoric of policy-makers and business leaders that people are the industry’s most important asset, many remain unconvinced that such a view is borne out by empirical evidence.  Frequently considered a satisfying career choice by people who have never held one’ (Coupland, 1993: 5).  MacDonald and Sirianni (1996) recognize the challenges of living and working in a service society which, according to them, is characterized by two kinds of service jobs: large numbers of low-skill, low-pay jobs and a smaller number of high-skill, high-income jobs, with few jobs being in the middle of these two extremes. Such a situation leads labour analysts to ask what kinds of jobs are being produced and who is filling them.

This point is also true for the tourism and hospitality industry and it is important to add a caveat about the generalization of the conditions of tourism and hospitality employment worldwide. Hence Baum (1995: 151) reflecting the diversity of employment within the sector notes that: In some geographical and sub-sector areas, tourism and hospitality provides an attractive, high-status working environment with competitive pay and conditions, which is in high demand in the labour force and benefits from low staff turnover. The other side of the coin is one of poor conditions, low pay, high staff turnover, problems in recruiting skills in a number of key areas, a high level of labour drawn from socially disadvantaged groups, poor status and the virtual absence of professionalism.

Organizations and managers in the tourism and hospitality industry face real challenges in recruiting, developing and maintaining a committed, competent, well managed and well-motivated workforce which is focused on offering a high-quality product to the increasingly demanding and discerning customer.

The 1995 International Tourism labor market conference clearly stated that tourism industry is facing acute shortage of skilled manpower and there are many obstacles as far as development of Human Resources in tourism industry is concerned, the conference observed that the people working in tourism industry are highly uneducated, unmotivated, unskilled and unproductive; and these are due to the unattractive salaries and working hours. In developing countries also the salaries paid by the tourism industry are comparatively far less than salaries paid by other industries like IT, call centers, retail, banking, insurance, finance, telecom, real estate etc also as tourism sector comprises mostly of small and medium sized enterprises the HR practices are not standardized, lack professional approach, vision, clear career path, secured and long term employment, growth opportunities, learning, development and quality of work life is resulting in high employee dissatisfaction and attrition moreover a poor perceived image of hospitality and tourism sector and inadequate and inefficient training and education programs are also discouraging the competent people and talented lot to opt the industry as a career option which is resulting in less and poor supply of manpower.