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

2. 5th Framework Programme of the EC
Research project FAME
Professional Identity: Flexibility and Mobility on the European Labour Market
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
Involvement in the profession (stability/conditions): the experience what it is to be this kind of worker in different conditions
Personal labour capital (technical and relational skills, attitude to work...): the workers perception of what the activity of production requires
Sense of involvement in the product: how far the worker has a sense of participation as against the sense that they are selling their labour
Perception – experience of the hierarchy: situation with respect to the hierarchy of the organisation, and the perspective of the hierarchy
Education and training: perception of the educational itinerary and training needs in this work
The significance of work: the reply to the question „what is work, as far as I am concerned?“
Group references: group perspectives that form the basis for the workers selfidentification

12. Patterns of personal strategies
Devoted professional
Professional focused on career (high flyer)
Conciliated worker
Unsatisfied active seeker
Newcomer/unconsolidated worker
Devoted professional – strong professional identity, in which aspects such as autonomy, a corporate sense of the profession, self-development in a job with an important vocational component, and an awareness of one‘s value (as human capital) to the company – among workers in positions of responsibility and considerable experience
High flyer – strong professional identity, centred on the organisation as a functional structure for work, which appears in workers with responsibility or with expectations of early promotion – in large companies and hotel chains; highly focused on career
Conciliated worker – type of vocational identity which adapts to the requirements that both the job and the company lay upon the worker, despite the insatisfaction that is often caused by this – the level of integration tends to be strong, although this depends to a large extent on the stability afforded by the company
Unsatisfied active seeker – develops labour integration in conflict: he experiences a tension between his own aims and interests, on the one side, and the chances that are offered to him at present and that do not satisfy his expectations, on the other. He is ready to develop drastic changes in his professional dedication, what may bring important transformations in his vocational identity – two elements: the assessment of his won capacities and potential as a worker and the perspectives and opportunities that the company and the sector offer (sympathy between both elements would imply activating strategies addressed to create alternatives in accessible opportunities
Newcomer/unconsolidated worker – common in young workers, with unstable work situations, and who change jobs frequently, and can therefore not develop a special link to the company, they are in the process of definition of their own priorities with respect to the profession and learning at work and their main aim is to gain experience – they work to earn a living and learn and build up a CV

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!