Service-to-service: Bridging tourism’s workforce gaps year-round

In today’s rapidly evolving tourism industry, developing a strategic approach on skills development within organisations is crucial for a futureproof sector and workforce to remain competitive and responsive to changing market demands. In this series of best practices we highlight key areas of skills development necessary for the digital and sustainable transformation and inclusive tourism growth. We discuss best practices that have been carefully selected in the PANTOUR project countries to get inspired. In this blog, we go to Finland for an exemplary case of Season-to-Season-Service.

 

Background information

The Finnish government’s programme of measures to respond to the challenges facing the workforce in the tourism industry, the so-called Matkailudiili. In the programme, market-oriented solutions to the challenges facing the tourism industry are sought as well as new ways to bring together job seekers and vacancies in the tourism industry. There is a labor shortage in the tourism industry, which in certain destinations can even be an obstacle to the growth of companies. In particular, seasonality in tourism employment is one of the biggest challenges in these destinations. Therefore, the questions to which a solution was sought in the programme were: How to get the workforce to move better to tourist destinations suffering from a labor shortage and how regional differences in tourist seasons can be taken into account in order to develop year-round tourism. As a solution, the programme piloted a “Season-to-Season Service” to establish opportunities for the employees to work year-round and for employers to get familiar and reliable employees from frequent employment relationships. The goal of the service is to look for new ways to employ and be employed in the tourism industry from the perspective of seasonality.

Analysis and overview

The goal of the service is, for companies and employees participating in the service, to form a pool of employers and employees and agree on employees’ transition from one season to another. Employees for suitable seasonal jobs in the tourism industry are searched for and helped in contacting tourism companies. The employee gets opportunities for successive employment relationships, and companies can share seasonal workers.

Examples and case studies

With the pilots, a new model was tested to promote the employment of loggers in the tourism industry, as well as easing the labor shortage in the tourism industry during the busy winter season. The goal was to get as many loggers as possible to find employment through the pilot in the tourism companies in their vicinity during the winter layoff from logging. During the winter season, the loggers provided authentic local knowledge and expertise available to tourism companies e.g., for service and maintenance work, nature guidance and off-road vehicle transport tasks.

Benefits and outcomes

For employers, recurring employment relationships make the operations easier when they don’t spend time on recruitment and orientation at the beginning of each season as employees are already familiar with the daily operations and practices of the tourism company. Jobseekers get new employment opportunities all year round and support to find a job.

Responsibilities and Accountability

The Season-to-Season Service is provided by TE services (the National Employment Agency), Matkailudiili programme and a private training company. In the service development, the perspectives of TE services (the National Employment Agency), job seekers and employers in the tourism industry were taken into account.

References and external resources

A promotional video can be seen here