Tourism Labour Research Articles

The formation of the tourism labour market in Spain, 1955–1973

AbstractThis paper studies the process of labour market formation in the tourism industry in Spain. Results show that tourism regions diverged in their capacity to attract local labour, a factor that led to different compositions of the workforce. In the most dynamic regions, circular migration became a key factor as a result of housing shortages, seasonality and labour policy. Tourism agents promoted these flows by different mechanisms such as recruitment at origin and temporary accommodation. Migration benefited growth of firms, natives' upward mobility and migrants' accumulation of capital. However, inequality in the regional labour market and host society increased.

Enacting Worldmaking Agency: Navigating and Negotiating Precarious Tourism Work and Lifestyle Mobilities in Lunenburg

Worldmaking for and through tourism often produces a reality that is advantageous to some populations and suppressive to others. Indeed, the production of precarious and feminized tourism labor is evidence of the tourism industry’s simultaneous reliance upon and re-creation of the system of global capitalism. However, tourism is fundamentally relational, meaning it is constituted by, and relies upon, the very peoples and places it (re)produces. Herein lies the multiplicity and simultaneity of situated tourism life-worlds, as well as the potential for progressive detachment from dominant representations. Ethical worldmaking is presented as a threefold system involving the conception of tourism beyond or outside of global capitalism; the appropriation of our inescapable role in the production of tourism worlds; and the recognition that a multiplicity of tourism community stakeholders simultaneously interprets and shapes tourism worlds according to such intersecting differences as gender, race, class, age, nationality, sexuality, and so forth. Applying this framework to an empirical study, the lived experiences of regionally mobile woman working in tourism provide insight into the tension and contradiction underpinning cultural tourism production in Lunenburg, Canada. Thus, a series of coping strategies are enacted in order to navigate and negotiate their complex positionality, blurring the boundaries between leisure and labor, travel and migration, subjugation and empowerment.

The effect of housing prices on tourism employment: Evidence from China

This study highlights the importance of the relationship between housing prices and tourism labour mobility. This study uses dynamic panel threshold approach to examine the nonlinear effect of housing prices on tourism labour mobility in Chinese mainland during the years 2000-2021. The empirical results show that rising housing prices are positively associated with tourism and its subsectors’ employment across different levels of housing prices. At the regional level, there exists regional heterogeneity of housing price affecting labour mobility within tourism industry and its subsectors in Eastern, Central and Western regions. Lastly, further discussion and policy suggestion are provided.

Digital nomadism and the tourism industry labor markets

PurposeThis paper aims to develop a vision for the future identifying how digital nomadism affects the labor markets in the tourism industry.Design/methodology/approachThe qualitative research method was used. The research data were collected using a semistructured interview form developed by the researcher. The sample consists of twenty people working in the tourism industry as tour guides, travel agency owners, accommodation sector employees and professional managers. The content analysis method was used to analyze the data.FindingsIt was found that employees in the tourism industry are familiar with digital nomadism, interact with employees working as digital nomads and may prefer the digital nomad way of working, while employees in the accommodation sector cannot work as digital nomads due to the nature of their work. It is shown that digital nomadism can be applied to tour guides and travel agency owners.Research limitations/implicationsThe data was collected from employees of the accommodation sector, travel agencies, tour guides and employees of the Turkish tourism labor market. It is recommended that the tourism labor markets adapt to the digitalized world and adjust their working models in this context.Originality/valueThis is one of the first studies on the impact of digital nomadism on the tourism labor markets.

Challenges to Cracking the Glass Ceiling among Saudi Women in the Tourism Industry

Women’s participation in the tourism workforce is growing intensely in response to Saudi Vision 2030. Notwithstanding this, Saudi women still have limited access to senior management positions. This study explores the barriers that Saudi women face to reach top managerial positions in the tourism industry and explores how Saudi women could crack the glass ceiling. For these reasons, this study undertook a phenomenological approach using in-depth interviews with Saudi women who were able to reach senior management. The purpose of the interviews is to explore their lived experience and their accessibility to senior management positions. The results of a thematic analysis showed that there were four overlapped barriers for the glass ceiling among Saudi women: cultural and social barriers, regulatory barriers, organizational barriers, and personal barriers. These main barriers have sub-barriers that contribute to the glass ceiling and prevent many women from reaching senior positions. This study shows that overcoming these barriers, particularly cultural and social barriers, could help Saudi women to crack the glass ceiling and achieve their dream of leadership. This study discusses the implications for policy makers, academics, and practitioners on the effective contribution of Saudi women to the tourism labor market, which contributes to sustainable tourism development and, ultimately, to Saudi Vision 2030.

‘You ensure your own safety’: gender, fear and tourism labour in the gig economy in Turkiye

The platform or gig economy has had a profound impact on the tourism ecosystem. However, the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE) warns that whilst platforms can contribute to more gender equality, they can also reinforce sexism and inequality. While platforms offer access to informal micro-entrepreneurship, they can also expose women to heightened vulnerability due to limited control over clients and lack of legal protection. Our research questions the link between gender roles, spatial fear, and platform workers’ experiences. Our findings indicate that despite Istanbul’s evolving urban tourism landscape, the prevailing gender politics in Turkey continues to uphold conservative gender norms that result in gendered labour divisions and gendered public space access. As female platform workers navigate safety concerns and feelings of fear in Istanbul, productivity becomes spatially constrained, despite their efforts to adapt using diverse innovative approaches. Interesting conclusions are drawn regarding the future of work via the finding that platforms create a hybrid employment model blurring host-guest lines, raising questions about the implications for platform workers’ safety.

Las pérdidas en el camino hacia la dirección y la gestión del capital humano en las organizaciones turísticas

There are still barriers to equal opportunities for women in the tourism sector, which has a high feminization rate. Despite the higher education level in tourism, women face difficulty absorbing their human capital into the tourism labour market. This study aims to analyze the "leaky pipeline" phenomenon in managing organizations related to tourism, which refers to losing women throughout their careers towards better jobs. The study distributed 447 questionnaires to individuals with different job profiles (currently working, previously worked, or planning to work). Results showed that although the tourism sector is highly feminized, women face losses in the pipeline leading to management positions. The "Lost Talent" group, mainly consisting of highly educated women, indicated factors that hinder their career advancement, resulting in talent drain to other sectors. Conversely, the "Privileged Professionals" group, predominantly composed of men, faced no difficulties advancing in the labour market. This study confirms the leaky pipeline in a feminized sector and provides a foundation for targeted management models to address gender injustice and promote equal opportunities.

DAMPAK INDIKATOR PARIWISATA TERHADAP PERTUMBUHAN EKONOMI REGIONAL (STUDI PANEL PROVINSI-PROVINSI INDONESIA)

Tourism in Indonesia is still regarded as an ordinary industry. However, it has the potential to drive economic growth. This paper uses panel data regression to investigate how several tourism indicators, like tourist expenditure, accommodation availability, and number of workers, affect regional tourism revenue in Indonesia and how regional tourism revenue affects GRDP. Results show that domestic tourist expenditure and accommodation availability positively impact regional tourism revenue and are statistically significant. It was also found that the effect of regional tourism revenue on GRDP is positive and significant. It is recommended that the local government improve the quality and increase the quantity of accommodation.
 
 Keywords: Tourism Revenue, Tourism Labor, Tourist Expenditure, Accommodation, GRDP

Mercado de trabalho e gênero. A participação das mulheres nas Atividades Características do Turismo

The insertion of women in the labor market was marked by paradoxes. On the one hand, this pro‑ cess occurred rapidly and haphazardly, understood as fundamental for female emancipation. On the other hand, it was late in coming and established on the basis of sexual division of labor, which assigns domestic work to women and genders activities in the productive sphere, so that this insertion did not substantially change gender hierarchies. In order to understand the participation of women in the formal tourism labor market, secondary data from the Annual Report of Social Information (RAIS) for the year 2019 were used for this research, undertaking a quantitative analysis that showed that the sector did not feminize but is clearly gendered, that is, with activities and occupations differentiated by gender, resulting in the feminization of tasks associated with domestic work, which demand qualities considered innate in women and concentrates them in specific functions, giving rise to processes of horizontal seg

The future of tourism and hospitality labour: challenges, requirements, trends, skills and the impact of technology

ABSTRACT This study was designed to fill two main research gaps: the need for a multidimensional perspective on the future of tourism and hospitality (T&H) labour and the lack of studies from the perspectives of key stakeholders who are representatives of tourism organisations and involved in policymaking. Therefore, it unveils the perceptions of policymakers responsible for tourism organisations in Portugal towards the future of T&H labour. Following an exploratory qualitative case study approach based on semi-structured interviews with eleven policymakers, the results illustrate that the most prominent challenges that the COVID-19 pandemic created are the damage to practical ability, finding a skilled and experienced workforce, and attracting tourism labour back to the sector. However, there are some requirements to overcome such challenges in the future. Moreover, future trends and skills for T&H employment were revealed as new working models, digitisation and robotisation, and the expected skills such as management, analytical, digital marketing, and customer behaviour analysis. Finally, technology was found to have positive and negative impacts on T&H employment. The results and implications will benefit Portugal and different destinations in understanding the dimensions of T&H labour for the future and developing future actions, strategies and policies.

The role of the tourism sector in creating direct employment in Mexico: evidence from linear and nonlinear ARDL frameworks

This paper analyzes the role of the tourism sector in creating direct employment in Mexico by measuring the output elasticity of tourism employment from both linear and nonlinear perspectives. Although using such elasticity is a common practice for calculating the impact of economic growth on employment, it has been neglected in the context of the tourism labor market. Using Autoregressive Distributed Lag (ARDL) and Nonlinear Autoregressive Distributed Lag (NARDL) models, this study analyzes the impact of both the quarterly indicator of tourism gross domestic product (GDP) and the multilateral real exchange rate on tourism employment from the first quarter of 2006 to the first quarter of 2021. The results of the linear models show that tourism employment is elastic to variations in tourism GDP. Conversely, the NARDL model illustrates that tourism employment is inelastic to both positive and negative changes in tourism GDP. However, the NARDL model also shows that tourism employment is resilient to the negative phases of growth in the sector, as it grows more during the expansive episodes than it is reduced during the contractive phases. Meanwhile, the models including the multilateral real exchange rate show that tourism employment positively responds to the depreciation of the Mexican peso.

Reassembling tourism labour and housing precarity: Barcelona during COVID-19

The COVID-19 crisis severely disrupted the lives of hospitality and tourism workers worldwide. In Southern European cities, overly dependent on the visitor economy, a substantial part of the workforce plunged into uncertainty, adding to the rising challenge of housing affordability resulting from a rapid financialisation of real estate assets over the last decade. This paper examines how interactive service workers have coped with, resisted and negotiated such augmented and double-edged precarity during the COVID-19 crisis in Barcelona. From an intersectional perspective, the study deploys an assemblage-based analysis to trace the variety of ways through which capacities for sustaining labour and securing homes emerged during the pandemic. We foreground a topology of adaptation practices and different trajectories nested to critical events to reveal the many forms in which social precarity is produced and embodied in labour and housing spaces. The research findings suggest that pre-pandemic labour and housing conditions were linked to the awkward welfare arrangements and the forms of social protection during COVID-19, which in most cases created new conditions for precarity and hopelessness. Different contingencies were coped at the margin of institutional support, nuancing emerging geographies of precarity and (re)produced through residential deprivation and embracing informality. The desire to work in the tourism and cultural sectors while imagining where and how to dwell surfaced as a controversial negotiation that affected workers unequally and foregrounded the possibility spaces of the precarious geography of tourism.

Plasmatic thinking and tourism: Plasmatic modernity

This paper builds on assemblage theory to propose a new theoretical understanding of modernity. While the conceptual framing is meant for modernity at large, this paper locates its conceptual discussion in the context of tourism in Macao and illustrates how plasmatic thinking, the new conceptual framework proposed, advances analysis of aspiration, exploitation and freedom of its tour guides. Plasmatic thinking helps examinations of tourism labour to engage with the fragile and fluid nature of the sociomaterial environments. Instead of structures, networks or fluidities, plasmatic thinking sees the world as composed of ‘plasmas’ – ‘charged’ sociomaterial clustering of objects, humans and the processes between them. Plasmas are a form of charged matter falling outside solid, liquid and gaseous states and metaphorises the fragility and impermanence of sociomaterial situations for plasmas disintegrates when discharged. The attention to charges and fragility of plasmas helps describes both pandemic levels shocks and everyday disruptions. Through a plasmatic analysis of the falling apart and coming together of such plasmas and how they bring about significant consequences to Macao's tourism, I showcase plasmatic thinking as a theoretical approach which vividly uncovers the fragility and fluidity of modernity and the workings of power in our sociomaterial worlds.

Kajian Literatur Tuntutan Hak Tenaga Kerja Pariwisata Di Indonesia

Tourism is one of the sectors that contribute to the absorption of the national workforce where tourism absorbed around 10% of the national workforce in 2019. Tourism labor has natural rights that are already attached to it. The fulfillment of workers' rights can help workers in feeling self-esteem and dignity, feeling freedom and security during work, and having the opportunity to choose and carry out productive work without restrictions. Labor rights are based on human rights derived from a set of assumptions of moral theories of the intrinsic value of human beings assessed for their status as human beings regardless of certain historical, religious, or cultural abilities. This research uses a qualitative approach with literature analysis methods and inductive content analysis using secondary data based on 14 previous studies that discuss tourism labor rights in Indonesia from 2016 to 2021 obtained from several journals published online. The conclusions of this study show that the labor rights demanded include: 1) living wages, 2) social security, 3) protection of women and children, 4) working hours and leave, 5) benefits (fixed and non-fixed), 6) termination of employment (layoffs), 7) overtime and overtime pay 8) gender equality, and 9) training and certification. Tourism labor unions can function and play a role in the protection and enforcement of tourism labor rights.

Integration of Venezuelan migrants in the tourism labor market in Peru: a case study of regulated travel agencies in Lima

Between 2015 to 2019, Peru became the second biggest host community for displaced Venezuelans, and 4 out 5 chose the capital, Lima, as their destination. While the majority of migrants found jobs in the tourism and hospitality industries, only a minority were employed in the regulated sector of tourism and hospitality, with the majority finding employment in what is considered the unregulated sector. This study presents an analysis on the role of regulated travel agencies in the process of the social and economic integration of Venezuelan migrants in the host country. A qualitative method was employed with in-depth interviews to migrants, migration experts and formal employers in the tourism sector. A total of 12 interviews took place during June to November 2020. It should be noted that the study took place during lockdowns so the sample size is relatively small due to the closure of travel agencies and the challenges on identifying participants. Findings indicate that regulated travel agencies represent a good medium for the integration of Venezuelan migrants as they create professional opportunities for skilled professionals and promote safe multicultural spaces that foster social integration. However, challenges were also recognized as migrants tend to be overqualified for the roles they performed and are also faced with gender inequality and other forms of discrimination by local society. This study proposed that given their professional qualifications Venezuelan migrants have the potential to contribute in the recovery of the tourism sector particularly after the pandemic. However, current unwieldy migration policies may deter them to reach job opportunities in the sector.

Research on the Current Situation and Countermeasures of Tourism Employment in Lishui City under the All-region Tourism

With the release of optimized epidemic prevention and control policies in China, the tourism industry is experiencing a strong return. However, the post-epidemic tourism era has led to rapidly changing tourist demands, which have greatly increased the professional ability and quality requirements of tourism workers. Therefore, the post-epidemic tourism employment problem has become a concern for both the government and the industry. This paper analyzes the talent demand in the tourism industry in Lishui City under the background of all-regional tourism and makes suggestions. While the rapid development of tourism in Lishui City has brought about increased employment opportunities, the tourism labor market in Lishui still faces various challenges, such as a shortage of tourism management talents, low cultural quality of tourism workers, and lack of tourism professionals. In addition, employment quality has declined due to high worker mobility and personnel loss caused by COVID-19. To address these issues, this study proposes several measures: establishing the concept of all-round tourism, promoting high-quality development of tourism to create more jobs, improving the quality of tourism workers and services, adjusting the tourism employment system, and optimizing the employment structure of the tourism industry by adjusting its layout. This paper offers useful suggestions to address the challenges faced by the tourism industry in Lishui City in the post-epidemic era.

Internet use and inverted U-shaped employment polarization in tourism occupations

The existing literature has not fully explored the polarization of tourism employment and the causes of this polarization, and this article makes contributions to addressing this issue. Using data on tourism-related occupations from the China General Social Survey , the article finds that current tourism employment is polarized in an inverted “U” shape, with the top of the polarization occurring in the middle-skilled occupational area. This differs significantly from the existing literature, which concludes that there is a “U” shaped employment polarization. The article finds that workers’ use of the Internet is the main cause of the inverted U-shaped polarization of tourism employment. This is reflected in the relatively low proportion of employment in the low-skilled and high-skilled occupational groups and the relatively high and stable proportion of employment in the middle-skilled occupational groups. However, dynamically, the employment of low-skilled groups tends to increase, and high-employment groups tend to decrease. These results reveal new findings in the tourism labor market and have important implications for current research on tourism employment.

Carbon Tax and Tourism Employment: Is There An Interplay?

The impact of the climate change response on the labour market is an important question for policymakers, while the net positive effect of green policies on the labour market is seen as one of the arguments in favour of a green transition. This is particularly important for the tourism labour market, which was severely hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. This study examined the effect of carbon taxes on tourism employment for European countries that have levied a carbon tax over the past thirty years. A macroeconomic panel data regression model ex-post study was applied by contrasting the obtained results via a robustness check. The estimation results indicate a slightly positive and significant association between the carbon tax and tourism employment, which was additionally tested by considering revenue recycling, early adopters of the carbon tax, and a higher carbon tax compared to countries with a lower carbon tax. We cannot conclude that these factors matter for tourism employment, proving the robustness of the results. Revenue-neutral carbon taxation, policies to address the skills gap, push and pull incentives, and active labour market policies to facilitate the quick re-integration of jobseekers into employment are viewed as pivotal to ensure a smoother transition toward a sustainable tourism labour market.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Labour Market in the Hotel Industry: Selected Conditions in Poland

Examining selected aspects of labour market performance in the Polish tourism sector can extend our knowledge of hotel company attitudes in connection with COVID-19. The aims of this article are to present selected determinants of labour market performance in the Polish tourism sector (with particular emphasis on the hotel industry) in the era of the COVID-19 pandemic and to address the following research question: how did the COVID-19 pandemic affect the functioning of hotel companies in the key tourist region of Poland—Zachodniopomorskie province? The research methods used in the study included critical analysis of source literature, survey method, correspondence analysis method, and analysis of primary and secondary data, mainly from official statistics. The survey was conducted in January 2022. Information was collected from 129 respondents using surveys. The results of the research presented in the article reveal that the observed long-term upward trend in the national labour market has been halted by the pandemic and that (among the various accommodation facilities) hotels are the most vulnerable to changes in the tourism labour market. The authors’ contributions to the literature are the identification of the extent to which businesses from the hotel industry have been affected by the COVID-19 pandemic and the determination of the impact of the pandemic on selected employment-related aspects of business operations in Zachodniopomorskie province.

Scientific research in the field of tourism at the Khmelnytsky humanitarian and pedagogical academy

The article analyses scientific research in the field of tourism at Khmelnytsky Humanitarian and Pedagogical Academy. The educational and professional programme ‘Tourism and Recreation’ of the master's level of higher education is developed in accordance with the needs of the modern tourism labour market. Scientific research in the field of tourism covers a wide range of topics and approaches aimed at a deeper understanding of tourism phenomena, impacts and trends. Through the educational component ‘Methodology of Scientific Research in the Field of Tourism’, students are introduced to the issues of academic freedom. Applicants and teachers of the department present their research in domestic and foreign publications. The scientific and professional issues of the department are proposed in the topics of course and qualification theses. The methodology of scientific research in the field of tourism is an important component for obtaining objective results and developing recommendations. Today it is necessary to expand scientific research in the field of tourism.