Myths and Realities in the Employability of Young People Working in the Hotel Sector

Abstract

In this chapter we present a research, developed in a framework of Ph.D. work, resulting a doctoral dissertation presented at the end of 2013. The methodology of qualitative orientation, focuses its attention on the voices of the young workers in the sector of the hotel sector from Andalusian area in Spain, as main source of information. The aim of this research was to analyze and describe the work and social situation of working youth in the hotel and tourism sector, describing both their profiles and beliefs, feelings and disappointments (tensions, insecurities, illusions, satisfactions, disappointments, frustrations, misunderstandings, etc.) in their work context, in order to know the most important landmark of their work experience. Understanding that such experience depends on multiple personal and professional factors and circumstances, as well as the result of the balance each person makes of what he expects and what he really finds in the vocation. It was therefore based on the principle that perceptions of experience may therefore be very complex and diverse in their contrasts and similarities. But in any case, it has been a small-scale research work, with the collaboration of the contributions of 260 hard-working young persons in the hotel and tourism sector.