Study suggests mindfulness training could reduce stress for tourism and hospitality frontline employees

Abstract

Purpose The authors wanted to explore how mindfulness training could help frontline employees in tourism and hospitality to regulate their emotions. They argued that it could potentially reduce employee burnout and raise levels of work engagement. Design/methodology/approach The two authors reviewed the existing literature in order to explore the mitigating effects of mindfulness training. They explored two propositions. First, that “training could potentially help to regulate the emotional labor of frontline employees in tourism and hospitality”. Second, that “Mindfulness-related training can potentially reduce burnout and enhance work engagement of tourism and hospitality frontline employees”. Findings Mindfulness training can be useful, the authors say, in helping employees to become more natural and present in the moment. This is because mindfulness practices can “help to regulate and control individual’s emotions, attention, thoughts and feelings”. This makes them better at managing relationships with customers. Originality/value The value of their conceptual paper, they said, is twofold. First, it has practical implications for tourism and hospitality managers. They can use mindfulness training to improve the wellbeing of frontline staff, and also boost work outcomes. Managers can also provide training to alleviate emotional exhaustion. The second benefit is for academics. Researchers could study outcomes of training and identify which factors maximize the effectiveness.