Factors Shaping Occupational Identities in the Tourism Sector

1

• Factors Shaping Occupational Identities in the
  Tourism Sector
• (Spain, Greece and the Czech Republic)
• Olga Strietska-Ilina
• Alena Zukersteinova
• FAME research project

2
Research project FAME

• Professional Identity Flexibility and Mobility
  on the European Labour Market
• 2000-2003
• 5th Framework Programme of the EC

Sectors Metal / Engineering Timber Furniture Health Care Telecommunication IT Tourism Countries Germany France UK Spain Estonia Czech Republic Greece
3
Methodology and research steps

• Literature review
• Sector contextual analysis
• Interviews with employers (up to 10 in each
  region)
• Interviews with employees (50 in-depth interviews
  in total)
• 31 in Spain (Valencian Community)
• 11 in Greece (Crete)
• 8 in the Czech Republic (Northwest Bohemia)
• Focus groups

4
Trends across countries

• Important sector in all considered national
  economies and in Europe
• Share of tourism in national employment is high
  in all three countries studied
• High growth potential and added value to the
  national economies, yet vulnerable to external
  factors

5
Main challenges for the sector

• Wages in hotel and catering are far below
  national average
• High labour fluctuation
• Seasonality
• High proportion of external labour
• High proportion of grey labour force
• High proportion of small companies, often family
  owned
• Merges and acquisitions
• Globalisation, accession to the EU
• Changing character of consumer demand
• Double nature of sectoral trends human touch of
  tradition vs. technological touch of modernisation

6
Education, training and human resource
development in the sector (1)

• Formal vocational preparation is less important
  than practical training
• Skill requirements
• personal and social skills
• technological innovation, computer skills and
  information technologies
• multiskilling (combination of skills from
  different qualifications)
• The role of employers in training provision is
  indispensable, but

7
Education, training and human resource
development in the sector (2)

• Segmentation of the labour market in the sector
• Jobs in a more dynamic segment with complex
  management and active provision of staff training
  (hotel chains, tour operators and travel agencies
  large companies)
• Jobs with scarce learning opportunities and lack
  of career development (accommodation and catering
  sub sectors small and micro companies)

8
The role of qualification in the process of
professional identity development

• 2 factors
• QUALIFICATION
• FLEXIBILITY
• ?
• Tension between both factors
• larger weight of flexibility and qualification
  falls to a second place

9
Changing work in tourism?

• The nature of the relation capital-labour has
  changed, is it so for tourism?
• A post-industrial revolution?
• Fluid subject of contracting
• Emotional/subjective elements embedded in the
  employer-employee relationship
• Double loyalty, before the employer and before
  the customer
• Illusion of independence in working performance
• The customer as an important source of
  satisfaction, yet it is also the most disturbing
  factor in their strategies
• Security provided mainly by the company

10
Work organization in tourism

• Spatial mobility for all qualification levels
• (the lower the qualification, the higher
  mobility is expected)
• Vertical mobility happens without formal criteria
  
• (yet it is very limited and involves other
  paybacks)
• Rather than horizontal mobility, multiskilling
  and substitution are demanded from workers
• (functional polyvalence)
• Cross-occupational mobility among low skilled
• Time flexibility demands (in all regards) are
  very high
• (and this is one of the main source of
  dissatisfaction and represents conflicts in
  family life)

11
Key factors for mapping of professional identity
12
Patterns of personal strategies

• Devoted professional
• Professional focused on career (high flyer)
• Conciliated worker
• Unsatisfied active seeker
• Newcomer/unconsolidated worker

13
Where employers and employees discourses meet and
where they disagree

• Employers search for professionals but they find
  mostly conciliated workers, active seekers and
  unconsolidated workers
• Yet, the demands they set upon all of them are
  the same to those expected from professionals
• Yet, the payback is not adequate to those meant
  for professionals
• Social dialogue is important for improvement of
  the skills situation in the sector, yet absent
• ACTIONS NEEDED!