Kristina Zampoukos

Hospitality workers and the relational spaces of labor (im)mobility

ABSTRACT Building on the recent interest among labor geographers for workers’ ability to strategize around their mobility, and tourism researchers’ longstanding examination of mobile tourism workers, this paper explores the mobility agency of differently positioned hospitality workers. The findings suggest that workers are not always ‘strategic’ in relation to labor mobility, and that labor mobility and career paths must be recognized as fragmented, happenstance and erratic. Furthermore, this article argues for an approach to the study of mobile tourism workers that takes the relational as well as temporal aspects into account. This endeavor is in particular guided by the notion of stories-so-far and the understanding of people as both being and becoming. The empirical basis of this paper consists of 22 interviews with hospitality workers in four hotel workplaces in Sweden; the luxury city hotel, the suburban chain hotel, the city chain hotel and the seasonal hotel. Ultimately, I suggest that the multifaceted complex of considerations which workers negotiate, could be conceptualized as the relational spaces of labor (im)mobility.

Tourism's Labour Geographies : Bringing Tourism into Work and Work into Tourism

ABSTRACT Geographers have certainly contributed actively to the extant scholarly literature relating to tourism work and workers. Nevertheless, with few notable exceptions, most of this research has been piecemeal and case-based demonstrating unawareness of broader theoretical discussions and debates within the emerging sub-field of labour geography. For this special issue, a total of eight papers have been selected, most of which deal to varying degrees with labour mobilities, a theme that mainstream labour geographers themselves have largely avoided in the past. Additionally, the thorny issue of setting the intellectual boundaries between what constitutes work and leisure in contexts such as volunteer tourism is taken up in some of the discussions. Our aim with this special issue is to encourage the development of closer intellectual connections between labour geography and the study of tourism work and workers and their everyday mobilities.

Does geography matter in all-inclusive resort tourism? An investigation of the marketing approach of major Scandinavian tour operators

ABSTRACT Over the last decade, there has been noticeable rise in popularity of all-inclusive holidays. This growth has coincided with the propensity in many destinations to develop tourism enclaves, which can either be purpose-built gated resorts physically isolated from their surrounding community or appear in the form of cruises, which have emerged as a particularly popular form of travel. In this explorative paper, we focus on the marketing of all-inclusive holidays, specifically those occurring in enclaves (including cruise ships). We investigate to what extent the geographic location of the tourist enclave is an important consideration for the travel industry. In other words, when it comes to all-inclusive holiday products, do the place-based attributes on offer at the destination and the actual location of the holiday matter from the perspective of those who are creating and selling the travel packet? An explorative study of Scandinavian tour operators shows that the local setting of the holiday is in fact a secondary consideration compared to the services and facilities on offer. Thus, there is an overriding tendency to downplay the destinations place-based attributes and it does not seem so important where the all-inclusive resort is located as long as it is well connected to the market and promises a comfortable holiday to the consumer. Tourism enclaves in the context of placelessness are discussed.