Tourism Enterprise. David Leslie
the LDNP. In one particular case, a woman living some distance away from the enterprise applied successfully for a job but subsequently found that although the hours were between 1100 hours and 1700 hours, the available public transport made for a much longer day and substantial cost. After a short period she resigned. This is one of the factors that explain why so many of these enterprises provide accommodation for staff, which also enables persons from outside the area to be employed. This is well illustrated by Lake District Hotels Ltd, which in total employs 460 staff of whom 250 live in accommodation provided. A further influential factor on staffing is that demand for many of the rural enterprises is less markedly seasonal than it was in the early 1990s. Thus continuity of revenues throughout the year supports appointment of full-time permanent staff, which might well not suit persons already in part-time positions; a situation that also brings problems as regards recruitment (see page 23).
Table 2.4. Employment.a
aArts & Crafts producers – very few employees; Food Producers – 63% employ 10 or fewer, 25% more than 50 persons, on average they employ 2.2 part-time staff and are not markedly seasonal (three enterprises employ seasonal staff full-time).
There is no doubting that sustainability includes the social welfare of staff and their development, hence the surveys and audits gave attention to staff training and personal development. By far, most of those enterprises that do employ staff provide in-house training (84%) and opportunities for staff development (72%) though, as a number of respondents noted, this was mainly to do with good practice in health and safety. Of all the categories, it is the inns that are most likely to provide staff training and opportunities for personal development. One reason accounting for this is that bar service staff, perhaps more than any other hospitality staff, require training to fulfil their duties from the moment they start their employment. Staff are also potentially significant role-players in the greening of any enterprise and thus communicating and explaining why actions are being introduced, encouraging to take on responsibility and to promote support and involvement for local community based and conservation initiatives is important (see Wisner et al., 2010). There is little to doubt that gaining their support can have a substantial impact on the success of any initiative, for example whether saving water in the kitchen, reducing electricity consumption through turning off lights in accommodation or encouraging customers to donate to community initiatives when settling their accounts. Overall their recognized contribution to furthering an EMS and wider social activities of the enterprises rather brings into question a recent United Nations Environment Report that suggests that tourism jobs do not contribute to preserving or restoring environmental quality. However, this does depend on the stance on such matters taken by the owners/managers. In the light of which it is notable that 23% of them did not think that their staff were concerned over such matters and a further 37% indicated that they did not know.
Recruitment
The restaurant and inns sectors in particular continue to find difficulty recruiting not only unskilled or semi-skilled personnel but also staff with specific skills; for example good quality managers for inns are hard to find and will often be ‘imported’. This situation is not solely a problem for the hospitality sector as, for example, in November 1999 the Windermere Steamboat Museum faced a shortage of skippers to operate its services after the winter lay-off and was seeking new captains and crew members for training in sufficient time for the forthcoming season.
A notable contrast is manifest between urban and rural operations when it comes to employment. In the case of the urban enterprises the majority of staff are recruited from within the area (including and perhaps surprisingly the managers). But this may often not be the case, especially with senior positions in tourist resort localities and emerging destinations. As Prosser (1992) argued, opportunities for personal development and senior jobs are invariably limited and cites the case of Club Mediterranean’s resort in Turks and Caicos Islands where locals complained that the jobs open to them were the lowest paid and menial. This is a recurrent argument and one which is by no means restricted to emerging destinations. This further illustrates ‘leakages’ through the import of more experienced staff, and flags up the influence of multinational companies and foreign investors.
Recruitment can also be difficult due to the level of demand overall as this can exceed local resources. In rural or coastal localities that develop as they become more popular tourist destinations, the generation of employment will inevitably outstrip local supply due to a combination of factors, including:
• declining number of potential employees in the locality;
• lack of desire on the part of some persons who are available; and
• lack of the necessary supporting infrastructure to attend the place of work.
Further exacerbating the situation in the UK is that these employment opportunities are predominantly in hospitality operations (estimated to account for some 93% of employees in tourism (Leidner, 2004)), which are not renowned for being attractive to young people in the UK. Additional to this is the oft cited denigration of tourism jobs (part-time, seasonal, low paid, female) invariably by commentators not involved in the business and as such are basing their opinions more on their own values in that such employment does not meet their perceptions of some ideal type of employment. This is certainly something of a myopic view; for example, Andriotis and Vaughan’s (2004) study based on Crete reveals it is neither so simple nor necessarily problematic (see Zientara, 2012). Secondly, it is generally recognized as an opportunity for young people. Thirdly, given declining rural populations there are not that many younger persons (18–25 year olds) available. Staff are therefore imported leading to the need for staff accommodation, as in the LDNP and rural Scotland. This importation of staff is also a most likely occurrence in any developing tourist destination in undeveloped rural/coastal areas; witness Cancun in Mexico or the Galapagos Islands (see Chapter 3). Thus some of the acclaimed socio-economic benefits arising through local employment are lost to the community.
Profile of the Owners/Managers
The study encompassed a focus on the owners/managers and their background on the basis that the information so gained might illuminate the management of the enterprises as regards EP. Yet, such information can be invaluable in the context of seeking to explain/account for some of the key elements of the study; for example potentially influential factors on why an owner/manager may act in a particular way.
The policies and thus operational practices of any organization are a direct function of the governance, thus of the owners’ values and attitudes whether a public limited company, partnership or sole trader. As such, if the chairman of the company, chief executive officer or the senior partner decides that the enterprise will in future ensure that all employees, irrespective of location will be treated equally as regards terms and conditions, and further that they will all be equitably paid at a higher rate than the average for the region, then every operation within that company follows suit. Equally so if a company decides that supplies of X will always be sourced locally whenever it is possible so to do. This is just as applicable to SMEs. In so far as national and multi-national companies (MNC) are influenced in their practices by the attitudes of their owners so too individual enterprises by their owners. Therefore the study sought to gain a profile of the owners (managers in comparatively few cases) of those enterprises that participated in the extended interviews of 2001 and 2011; an aspect that has hardly gained attention in the published research.
The areas covered not only contribute to the overall picture of the enterprises but also, and more usefully, serve to provide helpful criteria to subsequent analysis and interpretation, especially in the context of their awareness of, and attitudes towards, sustainability issues and EM practices (see Chapter 9). Insights into the background of the owners in the 2001 stage are presented in Table