Looking Good and Sounding Right The importance of Aesthetic Labour with Bandung Travel Agency Industry

Abstract

In this era which called Experienced Economic Era by Pine and Gilmore, employee has important role in creating experience for the customer [1, 2]. Human resource also viewed as important capital in the Industry since human resources are important in delivering values to meet customer expectations [3]. In Service sector especially in hospitality industry, an employee has crucial role because the simultaneous process of producing and consuming services [4, 5]. The interaction of employee and customer (which also known as service encounter) become very important. It needs not only technical skill but also other things which called soft skills [6]. The purpose of this research project is to explore the importance of aesthetic labour within Bandung Travel Agencies in Bandung by managers and staff through exploring aesthetic labour’s concept as a framework in understanding the important of aesthetic labour, investigating and critically analysing current thinking of the implementation of aesthetic labour especially how the aesthetic labour implementation on recruiting, selection, training, and service encounter stage. This research was using phenomenological philosophy and qualitative method. By using purposive sampling method, the respondents were employee and managers from two different travel agencies in Bandung. The data were collected using one to one interview and analysed using content analysis method. There were some similarities and also differences within the four stages with other current research regarding Aesthetic Labour. Attitude was seen as more important than appearance within Bandung Travel Agency Industry since it was harder to be thought and trained or re-shape. All respondents stated that aesthetic labour was an important supply of labour within Bandung Travel Agency Industry though the application on the recruitment, selection, training, and the service encounter were not as significant as other industries. Further research regarding Aesthetic Labour will be needed. Set of criteria regarding attitude and appearance within Bandung travel agency industry should be revealed in order to make better criteria of job requirements. Keywords— Aesthetic Labour, Attitude, Appearance, Bandung Travel Agency Industry