An Employee Sharing Model for the Tourism and Hospitality Industry

Efrén De La Mora Velasco,Adam Haney,Arthur Huang

doi:10.3390/tourhosp2020011

Efrén De La Mora Velasco, Adam Haney + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3390/tourhosp2020011

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Journal: Tourism and Hospitality	Publication Date: Apr 16, 2021
Citations: 7	License type: CC BY 4.0

Affiliation: University of Central Florida

Abstract

Fast technological developments have transformed the tourism and hospitality services and the labor market. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic exposed the vulnerability of the tourism and hospitality workforce. There is insufficient prior work about creating better work conditions and greater career opportunities for hospitality and tourism professionals in the swiftly changing labor market. To this end, this article analyzes the historical employee–employer relationships in the tourism and hospitality industry. It presents a new employee-sharing model framework for enhancing resilience and flexibility for hospitality and tourism enterprises and workers.

Highlights

For more than a century, the labor relationships of the tourism and hospitality (T&H)industry have been shaped by the growth of travel
We propose a strategic Employee Sharing Model (ESM) framework in the T&H context which can be adapted to other labor markets (Figure 1)
To facilitate the understanding of the ESM framework, we provide the following example in a T&H context

Summary

Introduction

For more than a century, the labor relationships of the tourism and hospitality (T&H). The development of the internet in the 1990s further created new job opportunities in T&H services [1]. The adoption of AI technologies in T&H work environments requires T&H workers to acquire new knowledge, skills, and attitudes. The employment data published by the World Travel and Tourism Council reveal that in 2020 nearly 62 million workers in the T&H sector were laid off globally, indicating a drop of 18.5% in T&H employment compared to 2019 [12]. The pandemic produced a significant impact on front-line service jobs [13]. The increasingly dynamic labor market reveals that past work arrangements in the. Considering the occupational outlook, T&H employees would need to actively reskill or upskill to adapt to the jobs increasingly requiring technical or high-order skills. Are T&H employees prepared to adapt to the swiftly changing work contexts? What are the implications of the changing T&H labor market for individual workers? What new work arrangements would be suitable to support the T&H workers? The present perspective article adopts and expands an Employee Sharing Model (ESM) as a promising solution

An Employee-Sharing Model

Findings

Conclusions and Future Directions