HR’s Role in the Tourism and Hospitality Industry

Tourism is one of the fastest growing industries in the world that is also one of the drivers of economy in many nations. This industry creates a repulse across the country by its affect to other industries. If we look at the past 10 years, we notice that it has created many opportunities in Sri Lanka as well as in other developing countries. As same as the tourism industry has created more job opportunities, simultaneously it contributes to the economy of the country. Number of opportunities that this industry creates are unquestionable however, the quality of the opportunities that are being emerged in the travel and tourism sector has been quite questionable. 

There are 2main definitive categories of job opportunities in the travel and tourism industry (Deb.R.,2020). 

• High built Jobs – Highly Attractive, has high working status environment, competitive pay, full of professionalism, has low staff turnover, more importantly the jobs that require more skills. 
• Low Built Jobs – Less Attractive, High staff turnover, with low working status environment, Less Pay, No or low sense of professionalism, low skilled jobs 

 Organisations and managers in travel and hospitality industry, faces real challenges in recruiting, developing, mentoring a competent, a committed, a well-managed and a well-motivated workforce whose focus is on delivering a quality service to their customers and there by generating a quality travel experience to customers (Čerović, S., 2020).These facts are significant in creating a tourism and hospitality organizational success, effectiveness, competitiveness, productivity and more importantly this adds up to the organizational profitability. What we have tried to emphasise above is that the industry needs for quality workforce, moreover we could make a remark as that the Human element plays a huge role in growth and development of Tourism and Hospitality trade (Dwyer, L. and Kim, C., 2003) Also, when we closely evaluate, we notice that the industry is undergoing through a paradigm shift. 

 Before concentrating on hospitality industry, we find this in the case of hospitality sector the quality of customer service and staff responsibility has got a direct impact on the image and reputation of organization. And this creates the bottom line of the organization. 

 HR practices outlined by Redman and Mathews (1998) to achieve high quality service are, 

• Recruitment and selection, 
• Retention, 
• Teamwork, 
• Training and development,
• Appraisal, 
• Rewarding quality, 
• Job security, 
• Employee involvement and employee relations 

 “The most widely used definition of human resource management is the one defined by Snell and Bohlander (2010) which describes it as a process for managing human capital to achieve the organization’s goals. “The hospitality industry is a labour-intensive industry, and this feature provides an excellent research environment for exploring HRM issues. In addition to having essential and practical HR functions, such as integrating resources, managing employees, cultivating capabilities, formulating strategies, improving performance, and achieving organizational goals, hospitality HRM also needs to assist the hotel industry in providing high-quality services to customers and maintaining customer relationships, moreover, promoting core competencies while the pursuit of organizational success. In addition to this, the people in the hospitality sector include both employees and customers. Therefore, HRM for hospitality is recognized as a critical element for connecting customers and transforming services, building core competencies, and improving internal and external performance” (Guerrier, Y. and Deery, M., 1998.) When we try to get the best people in the market, some of the issues which we basically face, first the pay structure and working culture of the organization. These are the issues as a manager which one must deal with. 

 According to Sri Lanka Tourism Development Authority (2018), there are more than 400,000 direct and indirect tourism and hospitality employees in the industry. In terms of its contribution to GDP, the sector accounted for 12.6 percent of total GDP in 2019. Since the hotel and tourism sector like most service sub-sector engages in labour-intensive activities, a doubling or tripling of tourist numbers will generate commensurate growth in employment. The resulting employment growth can be expected to take place both directly in the hotel sector, as well as in sectors such as tours and travels, hospitality, food and beverages and entertainment. Sri Lanka needs skilled labour and in need of retaining skilled labour in the country. The industry is now looking at robust talent management strategies to fill in the two categories of jobs. Table 1.0 highlights the direct workforce in the tourism service sector and the Table 2.0 highlights the structure of industry employments in Sri Lanka. 

Source: Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey, Annual Report (2019) 

 “The government has already stated that action will be taken to address the current skill shortage at operational and clerical (front office, guest relations logistics, etc.) levels in the sector in order to exploit the employment potential in the hotels and tourism sector. Although the sector has thus been clearly marked as requiring attention in the government's human resources development plan, the VET Plan for the tourism sector does not provide a comprehensive assessment of training needs. It only provides sub-occupational categories of direct employment opportunities of the sector covering eleven sub-sectors: food production; tourism-travel agency; tourism-tour operator; tour guides and allied services; hotel-food and beverage; hotel-general management executive cadre; hotel-human resources; hotel-front office; hotel-entertainment and allied; housekeeping, guest houses and supplementary accommodation (TCET,2010 P.67-68). Thus, the occupational categories covered under each sub-sector are comprehensive but do not provide details on training needs. Even the job analysis by key layers in the tourism sector (e.g., Front line, supervisory, management, executive, needs of the sector. The broad training needs identified by relevant VET Plan are summarized in Table 3.0 and it can be seen that the descriptions of core skills and technical skills required for each job are fairly broad.” (International Labour Organization, 2015) 

Table 3.0: Skill requirements of the tourism sector,2013-2017 

 Deb (2020) Outlines key Best Practices for talent management and high levels of customer centricity. 

• Creating internal talent pools, 
• Developing collaboration by eliminating information silos,
• Meaningful customer service values, 
• Aligning corporate strategy with individual roles, 
• Employee empowerment, 
• Executing enterprise-wide transformation, 
• Change should start at the top, 
• Clearly communicating the message, 
• Explaining how change affects employees individually,
• Involve every layer 

 HRM practices are a distinct and integrated action and has a great impact on the future of the globalised tourism and hospitality industry. Also, HR practices of such organization should be well managed, clearly spent out and properly implemented in order to succeed and sustain in this dynamic globalised market.

 Conclusion: It is now determined that majority of the above mentioned key best practices can only be done in a service organization/ Tourism and hospitality organization only if they retained employees with the best training methods. In simple, one cannot create an internal talent pool, develop a collaboration by eliminating information silos, provide a Meaningful customer service value, align corporate strategy with individual roles, empower employees, Execute enterprise-wide transformation, communicate Clearly, provide awareness on how changes affects employees individually, make employees aware the interrelation of them and the organization or Involve every layer of an organization, without a better training and development environment. 

 Training is the tool that improves skills of the organization (Olaniyan, D.A. and Ojo, L.B., 2008). That's why in most organizations, just after selecting their employees in part them in quality trainings. With the training employees can develop themselves as skilled employees of the organization. Different companies and different industries have different ways of training their employees. But more important in the service sector. This is an industry which needs more human efforts, more human contribution. This is an industry where people/customers will directly be communicating with employees of the organization. so, they should have all the skills equipped with so that they can contribute with immensely to the organization (Dimitrov, D., 2012). 

Reference 

Čerović, S., (2020). IN HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY. 

Deb, R. (2020) Human Resource Management in Tourism & Hospitality Industry (2nd Sem, MBATH) [Presentation]. Available at: https://youtu.be/iDWeId4v4tE (Accessed: 23 April 2022). 

Dimitrov, D., (2012). Sources of meaningfulness in the workplace: A study in the US hospitality sector. European Journal of Training and Development. 

Dwyer, L. and Kim, C., (2003). Destination competitiveness: determinants and indicators. Current issues in tourism, 6(5), pp.369-414. 

Guerrier, Y. and Deery, M., (1998). Research in hospitality human resource management and organizational behaviour. International Journal of Hospitality Management, 17(2), pp.145-160. 

International Labour Organization (2015) The skills gap in Four Industrial Sectors in Sri Lanka. ILO Country office for Sri Lanka and Maldives 

Olaniyan, D.A. and Ojo, L.B., (2008). Staff training and development: A vital tool for organizational effectiveness. European journal of scientific Research, 24(3), pp.326-331. 

Redman, T. and Mathews, B.P., (1998). Service quality and human resource management: A review and research agenda. Personnel Review. 

Sri Lanka Labour Force Survey, Annual Report (2019) 

Snell, S. and Bohlander, G.W. (2010) Principles of Human Resource Management. Mason; South-Western Cengage Learning 

TVEC, (2010), Vocational Education and Training Plan, Information and Communication Technology Sector