Career paths and mobility in the Swedish hospitality sector

ABSTRACT

How career paths are interpreted and conceptualised by hospitality workers and industry representatives remains underexplored in current literature. In this paper, we highlight and discuss sector-specific and contextual factors that influence the possibility of establishing a career within the Swedish hospitality sector. The paper uses interviews with hotel managers, who describe and discuss motivations and choices made throughout their own careers and interviews with young (former) seasonal hospitality workers who describe and reflect on their future plans and work-life experience. Additional data are derived through observations at national seminars and meetings for representatives from the Swedish tourism and hospitality industry, where issues of competence and careers were discussed. The findings indicate that the shaping of career paths within the hospitality sector is influenced by two normative and discursively produced ‘truths’ about career paths in the hospitality sector: the importance of internal knowledge transfer and the importance of high mobility. These narratives impose expectations on individuals to be mobile, to change jobs frequently and to work their way from the bottom-up within the industry, and are based on a presumption of a diversified and dense local hospitality labour market. However, since the conditions are different due to contextual, geographical features of labour market size and structure, attractiveness of places, etc., these expectations are difficult to fulfil in places other than in larger urban areas. These normative assumptions of what a successful hospitality career is also have consequences for the development of the hospitality sector as external influences of competence from other sectors and higher education are not seen as valuable, which makes the sector self-contained and not open to external, potentially innovative knowledge.

摘要

酒店员工及业界代表如何解释与构思职业路径在现有文献中鲜有讨论。我们从业界角度讨论了影响瑞典酒店业部门职业发展的背景因素。本文通过访谈酒店管理人员描述并且讨论了贯穿其自身职业发展中的就业动机及职业选择, 通过访谈年轻酒店业季节性员工 (包括曾经做过酒店季节性员工的人员) 描述并反思了他们在酒店业工作生活的经验以及未来的规划。另外, 通过参与观察瑞典旅游酒店业业界会议及研讨会获得信息, 讨论了酒店业职业发展与竞争的议题。结果表明, 酒店部门职业路径的形成受两个关于酒店业职业路径的规范性与推导性“事实”的影响:内部知识转移与高度职业变化的意义。这些受访人员的叙述, 基于当地酒店业劳工市场多样化与变换密集的推测, 期望酒店员工流动起来、通过经常性变化工作, 从酒店底层部门门闯出自己的职业道路。但是, 由于劳工市场规模与结构、就业地方的吸引力等背景与地理因素造成职业条件的不同, 所以对于成功酒店职业的期望在除了大城市以外的其他地方很难实现。这些规范性假设由于没有充分注意其它部门外部竞争的影响和高等教育的价值, 对于酒店业的发展也有影响, 使得酒店业部门自我设限, 对外部潜在创新性知识无法持开放态度。

KEYWORDS:

• Career paths
• mobility
• hospitality workers
• hospitality sector
• Sweden

关键词:

• 职业路径
• 移动
• 酒店员工
• 酒店业
• 瑞典

Acknowledgement

The authors would like to thank BFUF (the R&D Fund of the Swedish Tourism & Hospitality Industry) and Dalarna University for their financial support.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Additional information

Funding

The R&D Fund of the Swedish Tourism & Hospitality Industry (BFUF).

Notes on contributors

Susanna Heldt Cassel

Susanna Heldt Cassel is a Professor of Human Geography at the Centre for Tourism and Leisure Research, Dalarna University, Sweden. Her research is centred around issues of tourism and destination development, with special focus on social transformations of places, culture, identity and gender.

Maria Thulemark

Maria Thulemark holds a PhD degree in Human Geography and is an Associate Senior Lecturer in Tourism Studies at the Centre for Tourism and Leisure Research, Dalarna University, Sweden. Her research focuses on tourism and development with a special interest in mobility, migration and labour market issues.

Tara Duncan

Tara Duncan is a Senior Lecturer in Tourism Studies at the Centre for Tourism and Leisure Research, Dalarna University, Sweden. With a background in geography, Tara's research interests focus on lifestyle mobilities, the complexities of young budget travel and more recent, academic mobility, specifically framed within climate change and mobilities literature.