With tourists returning to Turkey, hoteliers will have to deal with the new challenges that the pandemic has left them with. In particular, with “reverse migration”: during the coronavirus season, seasonal workers retrained from tourism back to agriculture, and finding staff turns into serious difficulties. However, top management also has its own problems, the demands of investors are higher than the production of specialists. As a result, there is no one to work in new hotels and there is no one to manage them. In addition, this situation also threatens tourists – first of all, with a decrease in the quality of service.
“The problem of employment is the most important topic of the industry,” said the chairman of the board of hotels in one of the Turkish resorts, Emre Naryn. According to him, during the pandemic, seasonal workers left tourism and turned to agriculture. “During the pandemic, there was a reverse migration in the Antalya region. Many have abandoned seasonal tourism earnings and moved into the more permanent agricultural sector. Now we have problems with hiring staff. This led to the search for foreign employees. Many hotels in Turkey have staff from all over the world,” he added.
This situation is already with operating hotels, while “newcomers” also face the problem of a lack of managers. “Hoteliers who want to invest more in hotels face a shortage of staff. The tourism sector is still a very young sector, strong demand is the result of the last 35-40 years. But our universities still do not produce the required number of graduates to satisfy the appetites of our investors,” the Turkish expert said.
According to him, this may lead to the fact that hotels are forced to hire people with “Hoteliers don't refuse to build hotels, they want to do more, but they can't find employees. As a result, they are forced to hire people with little experience in top positions. This has consequences that are incompatible with the quality of Turkish tourism that has made it popular “An educational structure must be created that will take its place in the Turkish economy. We must do this in order to maintain our place among other resort countries. If we let it take its course, it will cost us dearly,” said Mr. Naryn.
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