Shapes of Tourism Employment

Introduction

Subjected to unprecedented opportunities but also to the hazards of the triumph of the leisure society [VIA 15], human resource management (HRM), which is part of the world of large tourist organizations, appears to be critical in many respects [GRE 19]. In the same vein, the individual is in a paradoxical position: envied and desired as a consumer, he or she is too often seen as a burden or optimized as an employee. This twofold consideration compromises adherence to the managerial discourse and cultures developed in the name of spreading values backed by customer service. But above all, it makes the organization dichotomous, which undermines the substance that can be attributed to its societal mission, at a time when CSR issues are essential in democratic debates. Both the hotel industry and air transport are not spared from the aforementioned singularities that they sometimes illustrate even to excess.

In addition, the two sectors have experienced a concomitant expansion [GAY 17], especially from the 1950s onwards. The first is essential to the second in order to attract tourists to the destinations served, to urbanize them in part but also to provide good accommodation for crews, so that many airlines have chosen to invest in hotel chains. Pan Am was a pioneer in creating the Intercontinental Hotel Corporation (IHC), which opened its first 85-room hotel in Belem, Brazil, in 1949, due to the lack of quality hotels available on site. In the same perspective, ...