Athens, Madrid, Paris, Rome Tourism in southern Europe experienced a strong recovery last year, and this season the number of bookings could be even higher. The desire to travel is back after the pandemic – only many employees have not returned.
While the Germans are tackling their holiday bookings for the summer, the industry is increasingly concerned: who should make the beds? Who will occupy the reception at the hotel? Who serve the food?
Vittorio Messina, President of the Italian industry association Assoturismo Confesercenti, chooses drastic words: “The problem of staff shortages has now reached the dimension of a real emergency.” It is impossible to cope with peak loads, especially in areas such as the Adriatic coast or on the holiday islands of Sicily and Sardinia .
2022 went well for the Italian tourism industry: the association counted 400 million hotel overnight stays, an increase of around 38 percent compared to the previous year. The level before the pandemic has almost been reached again. With 442 million overnight stays, the best result since 2010 is forecast for this year. The survey institute Demoskopika expects tourism spending to amount to 89 billion euros – an increase of almost 23 percent.
Because there is no minimum wage in Italy, there are hardly any Italians who want to work under bad conditions with limited seasonal contracts. Especially hotels in the two and three-star range also get into financial problems if they have to significantly increase salaries.
The Italian government is aware of the problems, two weeks ago Tourism Minister Daniela Santanchè met with the associations. Even if time is of the essence: there are still no concrete bills to tackle the personnel crisis.
40 percent of the tourist offices in Italy are still free this year.
(Photo: www.imago-images.de)
“We need to strengthen regional vocational training for tourism professionals and open ourselves to pensioners and students by offering temporary jobs with full tax exemption,” suggests Messina. Across the country, around 40 percent of the positions are currently vacant.
>> Read also: Is vacation now only for high earners?
Alpitour, one of the largest tourism providers in Italy, wants to fill the gap with workers from abroad. Alpitour boss Gabriele Burgio explicitly wants to address migrants who “we see on the street today and who don’t have a job”. He has a training program in mind for non-EU foreigners, but there is still no legal basis for it.
Greece: seasonal workers from Bangladesh and Pakistan
In Greece too, people are looking abroad for the vacancies because many local workers have migrated to other jobs with better pay and more regular working hours during the pandemic. Already last year, 263,000 jobs in the Greek hotel industry and gastronomy 60,000 will not be occupied. This year there will probably be a shortage of 80,000 employees.
The tourism industry in Greece is preparing for a new travel record this year. “If you want to go on holiday to Rhodes, Kos, the Cyclades or Zakynthos this year, you have to book as soon as possible,” says Tui sales manager Benjamin Jacobi. Many hoteliers are already reporting 50 percent more bookings for the summer than at this time last year.
The government in Athens is now planning visa easing to recruit seasonal workers from Bangladesh, Pakistan, India and Egypt. Giorgos Chotzoglou, chairman of the federation of tourism trade unions, criticizes that this would “undermine workers’ rights and depress wages”. If the hoteliers and restaurateurs would pay higher salaries and offer better working conditions, the 80,000 vacancies could be filled by Greek workers, says the trade unionist.
Spain: Balearic Islands hardly affordable for workers
In Spain, which is also hoping for a new record summer, the Randstad recruitment agency assumes that 60,000 tourism workers will be missing this season to meet the expected high demand. The situation on the Balearic Islands is particularly delicate. Due to numerous holiday rentals, rents in the Balearic Islands are so high that many employees in the tourism sector with their traditionally low salaries cannot afford to stay.
The president of the hotel association in Menorca, Luis Casals, told the newspaper “Menorca Es Diari” that the big hotel chains were already booking hotels or apartments for their employees. According to the industry journal “Preferente”, hoteliers on the Balearic Islands are also trying to poach employees from the construction industry.
The business association of Cadiz in Andalusia even wants to recruit staff from Morocco for the summer season. Moroccans traditionally work in the region to harvest strawberries and then return to Morocco.
Employees can no longer find cheap accommodation on Mallorca, which is why large hotel chains are already renting hotels and apartments for their staff themselves.
(Photo: IMAGO/Chris Emil Janssen)
However, they are not allowed to work in tourism without further ado: every quarter, the Spanish government publishes a list of hard-to-fill vacancies for which companies can recruit abroad. Tourism in Andalusia has not yet been included.
France: More than 200,000 vacancies
The French tourism industry launched a recruitment offensive in its own country in the week before Easter: the industry is recruiting urgently needed young people at more than 1,000 job fairs and other events. France, the world’s most popular holiday destination in terms of visitor numbers, is missing more than 200,000 skilled workers.
>> Read here: Where property prices in Mallorca have particularly increased
Christian Mantei of the state tourism promotion agency Atout France told Le Monde newspaper that the lack of workers is hampering the growth of the industry. “Even if we had an extraordinary year in 2022, we could have done five to ten percent better if the offer had not been reduced due to the lack of staff.”
The goal of the French tourism industry is to enhance the professions in the sector. Salaries have already risen by an average of 16 percent in the past year. However, the responsible minister, Olivia Grégoire, does not expect a quick solution for the many vacancies in hotels or restaurants: “The shortage of workers is structural.”
More: Ranking 2023 – These are the best travel cancellation insurances.