Labor in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry: Skills, Ethics, Issues, and Rights

An organization’s workforce is arguably the greatest asset of any organization, and tourism and hospitality is an extremely labor-intensive industry. This volume takes an in-depth look at workforce issues in the tourism and hospitality industry, focusing on labor skills, ethics, rights, and more. It examines manpower planning beyond forecasting estimates to include investigative techniques in a way that offers insight for economic planning in both tourism and tourism education. The authors use economic, sociological, and psychological analysis and take a pragmatic stance on the challenges of the workforce.

The authors look at the specifics of the labor market of the tourism and hospitality industry, discussing the current status of the industry’s organizations and how they are suffering labor shortages (qualitative or quantitative) and constant turnover--resulting in significant costs to organizations. Topics such as low wages and overdependence on tipping, workforce diversity, technological change resistance, and seasonality issues, and more are examined. The volume also provides a section on labor rights in the tourism and hospitality industry, which looks at labor trafficking and issues in social justice and human rights.

Key features:

- Provides an in-depth understanding of tourism employment

- Presents a critical analysis of labor supply and demand in the tourism and hospitality industries

- Considers the need for specific labor skills and training

- Examines the reasons for labor shortages and turnover in the tourism and hospitality industry

- Discusses labor ethics and social responsibility in hospitality/tourism organizations

Abdallah M. Elshaer, PhD, is an assistant lecturer in the Hotel Studies Department at the Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, University of Sadat City, Egypt, where he has been a faculty member since 2011. Currently, he is a PhD researcher at Pamplin College of Business, Virginia Tech University, Virginia, USA. His research interests lie in the challenges of tourism and hospitality industries, service operations management, and foodservice operations.

Asmaa M. Marzouk, PhD, is an assistant lecturer and a PhD researcher in the Tourism Studies Department at the Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, University of Sadat City, Egypt. Her research interests concentrate on labor issues, information and communication technologies in tourism, tourism management, and marketing. She published a number of research papers on information and communication technologies and labor issues.