The implications of tourism development on labour conditions

Abstract

Tourism currently plays an important role in the economy, contributing to the growth of economy, as well as having a remarkable impact on the local economy, environment, population and social development of the regions. The particular feature of the tourism is that includes many activities of different type and size, so this transversal character contributes to the creation of direct and indirect employment. However, the measurement and evaluation of the economic impact of tourism face two difficulties: first, the extensive and varied methodology on its measurement, and secondly the lack of reliable statistical sources and homogeneous. According to the specialized literature, tourism industry is considered labor-intensive activity that generates employment among people with low possibilities entering the labor market such as women, immigrants, young people and less skilled. However, tourism employment has been criticized for generating temporary and part-time employment, and low-wages. Consequently it is essential to focus on the tourism employment analysis given that the quality of tourist services offered will depend on the employees, because it is a factor still irreplaceable in many phases of activity. In addition, for the formulation of policies and an efficient expenditure of public funds become vital to know, examine and evaluate the impact of tourism on employment. Furthermore, the maintenance and improvement of competitiveness in the tourism sector could considerably contribute to promoting intelligent, sustainable and integrated growth. Although Spain maintains one of the highest positions in the world ranking in the number of tourists’ arrival, its distribution by regions is very different. In addition, the Spanish tourism follows the pattern of Mediterranean tourism, with a high concentration of activity in the summer months. Consequently, it is essential to propose a method to study tourism specialization and seasonality in Spain at a regional level, which enhances the analysis of the tourism sector. Depending on the degree of development of tourism in each region, we can observe different effects on the economy. Therefore, the purpose of this study is to contribute to fill the gap in the literature about working conditions in the tourism characteristic activities. As a result the first step is to review the existing literature that defines the concepts of tourism, tourism specialization and seasonality, and to look for the best measure to approach these concepts. Then, we applied the specialization and seasonality in order to find the regional disparities in the Spanish territory. Secondly, we analyze tourism employment from supply-side perspective following the international recommendations, and using data provided by Census and the Labor Force Survey. We obtain that tourism employment have different characteristics depending on the particular characteristic activity. In addition, the outcomes show the worrying presence of temporary employees, the slightly increase of part-time employees and a decrease of wage relative to the rest of the economy. Later, in the third section we examine the effects of tourism specialization and seasonality on the high percentage of temporary employment in the tourist activities. Finally in the last section, we consider how the tourism specialization and seasonality influence on the labor market. We introduce the indicators of tourism specialization and seasonality in a wage equation to see its effects on wages and employment.