New Campaign Aims To Shed A Positive Light On A Career In Tourism And Hospitality

The tourism and hospitality sector has been derided in many quarters as a place to build a career in. As well as poor rates of pay the perception is that jobs in the sector are of low status, you have to work long and unsociable hours, and the conditions at work and job security are not great with often very little chance of career progression.

The Industry Generates Around £1 Billion In Revenue

However Tourism NI is trying to change what they see as these misperceptions with their new Make It Here campaign. You may be interested to know that this industry generates around £1 billion in revenue for the Northern Ireland economy. In fact 1 in 12 jobs in the country are based in tourism and hospitality which accounts for approximately 65,000 jobs.

Below are a few quotes about the positive aspects of working in the tourism and hospitality industry from people at the coal face, gleaned from an article on the Belfast Newsletter website.

Una Burns, manager of Charlie’s Bar in Enniskillen said:

“Staff need to know they are actually appreciated and cared about if they are going to pursue a career in this industry,

“Sometimes the perception in hospitality is that they’re just a number, but we want our people to feel genuinely looked after.”

Una has completed some mental health and first aid training and she went on to say:

“It helped me to understand mental health and recognise the signs and symptoms in people, as well as be able to signpost them to get the help they need,” she says. “Our business can be busy so it is easy to get stressed out and anxious. Following the training we’ve introduced “take 5” breaks for when team members need a few minutes to themselves.”

And Heather Graham, head of HR at Titanic Belfast, spoke about the industry’s bad reputation for long unsociable hours which she believes is being addressed by many businesses, including her own. She said:

“After Covid, everyone was going into the accelerating phase of recovery and trying to recruit at the same time. Everyone was trying to get new talent which was a struggle. This time last year, we were advertising some of our roles four or five times and they still couldn’t be filled. So the skills gap that was identified pre-Covid really came to the forefront,” she says.

“We believe Titanic Belfast is an attractive place to work, but we’ve really looked at our offer to staff, for example maximizing the use of annualized hours contracts, so staff have a pot of hours to work during an entire year. This means if you work 45 hours one week, you will only have to do 35 hours the next week. You’re only expected to work what you are paid to work.

“Staff have told us they really value having the safety and security of the enhanced sick pay scheme and our benefits package now includes counselling access for all, a fitness and discount scheme and access to a private GP service too,” she explains.

“As part of our wellbeing initiatives, we ran a summer bootcamp on the Titanic slipways with a local fitness instructor and yoga classes during the winter months. It all adds to the appeal of working here.”

As mentioned above the tourism and hospitality industry is a large and vital part of the economy here in Northern Ireland so anything that promotes this sector and can make it a more attractive proposition to people as a career opportunity gets our vote.