Future of Work - Human Capital

Travel & Tourism is one of the world’s largest employers. The sector directly employs over 100 million individuals and supports 1 in 10 of all jobs in the world. And over the course of coming decade, we expect Travel & Tourism to provide a total of 74.5 million new jobs, 23.2 million of which will be provided directly within the sector.

The continued growth of Travel & Tourism around the world depends on the right people with the right skills being available to meet this demand for additional human capital.

Several studies and reports are increasing the understanding of the current status of employment in Travel & Tourism and the human capital trends that are expected into the future.

Global Talent Trends and Issues for the Travel & Tourism Sector (2014) quantifies the scale of future talent challenges in Travel & Tourism for the first time.  It highlights the economic impact that the challenge could have on the global economy, the scale of the problem across 46 countries and assesses how well the countries are placed to address the challenges they face.

Gender Equality and Youth Employment in Travel & Tourism (2013) shows that Travel & Tourism employs a higher proportion of women and young people than is represented in the workforce as a whole. The sector offers women prospects for self-employment which are less accessible in other sectors and holds real opportunities for job creation to address the youth unemployment problems faced by countries across the world. These realities of high proportions of women and youth in the sector are forecast to remain the case for the next ten years.

Undergraduate Perceptions (2013) finds that Travel & Tourism is viewed as a reasonably attractive industry for university undergraduates but one that is still poorly understood. Scarce information and misconceptions exist about the skills required for graduates as well as the roles, career development and working. The research shows that there is a clear lack of information, misjudgement and preconception about what a graduate career in Travel & Tourism would offer.