Diversity management in tourism and hospitality: an exploratory study

1. Introduction

Globalization is a current trend having a great impact on the hospitality and tourism industry (Reisinger, 2009). Accordingly, people from diverse backgrounds work together which help an organization differentiate itself in the industry. Diversity helps in bringing new perspectives and innovative ideas to execute events and has many advantages if managed successfully. However, with diversity, there is an increase in the number of conflicts in the organization, particularly the hospitality and tourism industry, which has great dimensions with cultural diversity.

Diversity can be classified into two simple dimensions. The primary dimensions being age, gender and sexual orientation which easily differentiate one person from the other and is visible in the first encounter. The secondary dimensions are communication style, educational background, ethnicity, nationality and religion which are not easily visible (Ashton, 2010) and do not receive adequate attention. A culturally diverse workforce has long been an important reliance for hospitality and tourism industry as globalization becomes a driving force behind strategic planning (Torres et al., 2014). Also, as there has been an influx of migrant labors and minority employees entering this industry, the current organizations are facing a multicultural challenge. Statistics have shown that at the start of the year 2016 the hotel industry saw a continued upswing trend with a huge upgrade in terms of technology. It was predicted that the sector could see a growth of up to a solid US$550bn through the year.

The workplace environment is constantly changing and cross cultural management is a key concern for leaders. Companies have encountered questions like: Q1.

How to increase fairness for employees from diverse backgrounds?

Q2.

How to maximize the contribution of each employee in a culturally diverse workforce?

Q3.

How to make all the employees work harmoniously together to reach a common organization goal? (Gong, 2008).

To answer these problems, companies must make efficient efforts to address the issue of cross cultural management of the mobile workforce in international locations and mixed backgrounds of a workforce in a single location (Day, 2007). Diversity can be a problem, but it is also the solution for any organization to have an edge in the industry through effective management. The challenge is to extract the very essence of diversity and use it to...