Edith Szivas

Tourism employment : analysis and planning

Introduction: The Concept to the BookPart One: Understanding the Industry 1. Diversity and Planning 2. Attraction and Accessibility 3. Labour Productivity 4. Pay Administration 5. The Nature of Service LabourPart Two: Analysis Some Empirical Studies 6. The Principles of Biographical Analysis 7. Mobility into Tourism 8. Career Analysis and Labour Markets 9. Motivation and Occupational Choice 10. Occupational Classification and Analysis 11. Skill Accumulation Patterns 12.Personal Career StrategiesPart Three: Human Resource Development 13. Human Resource Management 14.Vocational Education and Markets: Tourism Education 15.Planning and Development

Labor mobility into tourism - attraction and satisfaction.

Abstract The article reports a study of labor mobility into tourism that attempts to replicate the findings of previous research conducted in a different setting. Data was collected from an urban and a rural region of the United Kingdom on mobility patterns, orientations to tourism employment, and the impacts of the change. The study supports the findings of the previous work but found no significant differences between the rural and the urban experience of mobility. Tourism employment as a “way of life” received support from the evidence that people were prepared to surrender education-occupation compatibility in return for a more self-controlled work-life relationship.

Tourism employment during economic transition.

Abstract This study examines labor mobility into tourism employment during economic transition. Working from the proposition that the industry serves as a refuge, it discusses the inward mobility patterns from other economic sectors, assesses the impact of the change, and measures the motivations for taking up such occupations. The study found that workers came from an unusually wide range of industries, which supports the idea of upheaval in the labor market. While there is little indication it is causing widespread personal suffering, evidence for the “refuge” role of tourism was found. Employment in this industry emerges as being attractive and accessible for people with various stock of human capital.

Entrance into Tourism Entrepreneurship: A UK Case Study:

The paper reports a study of entrance into tourism entrepreneurship in two areas of the UK. It focuses on the take-up of small businesses in tourism and examines issues of skill accumulation, capital acquisition, motives and impacts. The research supports findings from previous studies in terms of relative ease of entry to the industry and there is clear evidence of ‘way of life’ motives. In the context of human capital, the study shows limited reliance upon past experience. There is evidence of general contentment with the impacts on personal and working life but the findings indicate that a certain trade-off process takes place.

The Multiple Assessment of Interpretation Effectiveness: Promoting Visitors’ Environmental Attitudes and Behavior

Interpretation has been recognized as a useful tool in managing visitor behavior in nature-based tourism areas. This study explores a multiple assessment approach to identify the strengths and weaknesses of site-based interpretation in influencing multidimensional aspects of attitudes and behavioral intentions toward local environmental issues. Visitors to the Lulworth coastal area in England were studied using on-site questionnaire survey data. The results of the research highlight that the effectiveness of interpretation varied in relation to a number of different aspects of responsible environmental behavior and local conservation issues. The findings also reveal that it fostered visitors’ awareness of and their support for management policies but its impacts were limited to site-specific responsible behavior related in this case to geological and environmental conservation.

Pay determination: A Socioeconomic Framework

Abstract The article attempts to form a conceptual framework for understanding how pay levels and differentials are determined in tourism employment. This is constructed from the application of economic, structural, and psychological theories to known structural, and behavioral features of the industry. It identifies factors that work in concert to exert deflationary or inflationary pressures on the level of pay. The attractiveness of tourism, mobility, and the tolerance of low pay feature strongly, but at the heart of the notion is that the socioeconomic factors are synthesized into fundamental managerial assumptions which are maintained by industry norms. The outcome is a framework replete with deflationary influences.

Residents' Perceptions of Religious Tourism and its Socio-Economic Impacts on the Island of Tinos

Tourism and religion are historically related through the institution of pilgrimage, from which later the phenomenon of religious tourism emerged. Whilst numerous studies examined how tourism impacts on destinations and how local residents view tourism, there is a paucity of studies looking specifically at how religious tourism and tourists affect local residents living in “holy or sacred” destinations. This paper seeks to fill that gap in the literature by examining the perceptions of local residents of the socio-economic impacts of religious tourism on the island of Tinos, Greece. Data was collected through a questionnaire survey amongst local residents. The findings of the study revealed that the majority of residents welcome religious tourists to the island and perceive the socio-economic impacts as positive. Differences in perceptions were found on the basis of religiousness measured as frequency of church attendance and age of residents. Furthermore, the study found that whilst religious tourists are perceived as being different from “ordinary” tourists and are seen as similar to the residents themselves, they are not necessarily preferred to non-religious tourists. Overall, there is strong evidence that economic considerations override other concerns by local residents. The paper suggests management and development strategies for developing other forms of tourism on the island, whilst maintaining its role as religious site.

The Dependence of Tourism SMEs on NTOs The Case of Finland

This article reports on a study to explore the level of dependence of small and medium-sized tourism enterprises (SMEs) in Finland on the resources of the Finnish Tourist Board (FTB). A tool to measure resource dependence was developed. The overall importance of specified resources, the level of exchange of these resources acquired from the FTB, the existence of alternative sources for similar resources, and access to them were assessed. The level of dependence of Finnish tourism SMEs on the FTB was reported to be moderate. Differences were, however, identified among different types of enterprises. The size of enterprises, their proportion of foreign guests, their marketing planning, and their cooperation with others affected the level of resource dependence. The FTB resources on which tourism SMEs were most dependent were destination marketing and marketing knowledge. Results contribute to an understanding of the role of national tourism organizations.

Tourism Employment and Poverty: Revisiting the Supply Curve

The authors argue that the theory of the downward-sloping supply curve for labour is relevant to explanations of labour market behaviour in tourism. The paper is founded on the work of Sharif (1986, 1991, 2000), who questioned the definition of subsistence and argued that, in certain conditions, the initial slope of the curve would be downwards. The authors ask whether tourism development could provide these particular conditions. An important distinction is made between the perception of management of the market being in surplus or abundance. If the downward-sloping supply curve is the case, then the distress selling of labour that it implies would have implications for the quality of tourism products and for the capacity of tourism to alleviate poverty.

The Use of Cognitive Mapping in Analysing Sustainable Tourism Policy: Methodological Implications

Abstract There is a growing body of literature arguing for the need to examine sustainable tourism and policies for sustainable tourism within complexity theory. Methods which are particularly developed to study complex problems are needed in order to move from conceptualization and theory to understanding and operationalization of the complexity underpinning policies for sustainable tourism. This paper discusses the development of a cognitive mapping method to study sustainable tourism policy as a complex problem which has to be viewed holistically, with ethical implications, and with means and goals being intermingled in adaptive routes. A variation of SODA (Strategic Options Development and Analysis) approach to cognitive mapping is proposed and the decisions the researcher has to make regarding the method of elicitation, the coding and the analysis of the cognitive maps are discussed. This method is particularly useful to study complexity between policy issues as perceived by policy-makers and to build models in the form of cognitive maps. The method discussed here provides rich qualitative information capable of revealing goals, key policy considerations, and their interrelatedness in a holistic context. Complexity may be examined and structured, and policies can be studied as a set of interrelated policy issues. In this way, policies for sustainable tourism can be improved on the basis of knowledge and complexity management.