Over a dozen key points – both positive and negative – have been identified from a comprehensive study compiled by 1,700 submissions into the perception of a career in the New Zealand hotel and tourism industry, the country’s leading export industry.
The study incorporated the opinions of students and young people, parents, teachers and career advisors and uncovered projections showing double-digit growth in the number of jobs expected to be created in the next five years across major cities.
Key positives unearthed by the study included a belief that young people consider tourism as an important part of the economy, an appeal that the industry can make a rewarding career, an experience-based promotion system designed to reward loyalty and the appeal of many jobs not chaining people to a desk and allowing them to get out and about.
Noted challenges identified included an understanding that many jobs are not well paid, the anti-social nature of tourism jobs and a lack of positive advocacy coming from career advisors and parents encouraging children to choose tourism as a career pathway. The study also found a common perception that tourism was viewed as an “easy subject” and that “unambitious people” go into the tourism industry.
Tourism employers were provided insights in the report on the best ways to approach educators to promote the tourism industry as a career path. As well as attracting people to consider the industry for a career, retention was earmarked as an area of concern.
Tourism Industry Aotearoa CEO Chris Roberts said young people had access to a huge range of jobs from front-line customer-facing roles through to back-office and business-focused positions in all regions of the country.
“Whatever your passion, you can have your career in tourism. And for the sustainable success of our industry, we need to attract talented young people so that we can offer world-class experiences to our visitors. TIA plans to use the insights from this research to create a strategy to attract young people to pursue career and work opportunities in tourism.”
To read the reports in their entirety, click below:
Research: Perceptions of careers in the tourism industry
Research: Young people’s perceptions of a tourism industry career