Attracting young people to tourism is not simply about telling them that jobs are available. If we want more young people to consider tourism as a career, we also need to think about when and how they experience the industry, who they meet along the way, and what those experiences look like.
In a recent article, Wayne Smith, Professor of Hospitality and Tourism Management at Toronto Metropolitan University, discusses the workforce challenges facing Canada’s tourism industry. One particularly interesting idea is his “Sustainable Tourism Pipeline Model,” which looks at how employer businesses can build ongoing relationships with young people and help connect them to future careers in the industry.
What matters most is not any single activity within the model, but the idea of viewing youth engagement as a long-term relationship with the future workforce, rather than a one-time recruitment activity.
A high school career presentation has value. So does a summer job that gives a young person their first experience in tourism. But their potential becomes much greater when we stop viewing them as isolated activities or simply ways to fill seasonal vacancies, and instead consider how those initial connections might lead to future education, work experience, and ultimately a career.
Tourism businesses are uniquely positioned to create those connections. They can open their workplaces to young people, share the career journeys of the people working there, and provide meaningful first work experiences. More importantly, those initial connections can become opportunities for young people to experience tourism not simply as somewhere they might work once, but as an industry where they can grow and build a career.
Of course, youth engagement alone will not solve every challenge facing tourism’s future workforce. Housing affordability and other barriers to living and working in tourism communities remain significant realities.
Still, one area where the industry can have a direct impact is in turning a young person’s first interaction with tourism into a relationship that continues beyond that initial experience.
Smith’s model is not the only answer. But rather than thinking only about how to fill this summer’s vacancies, it offers a useful perspective for the industry to consider: how can employer businesses engage with young people today as part of developing the workforce they may need several years from now?
