Career Development in Tourism Industry

Introduction

The increasing competition conditions in the business world have increased the pressure to use resources effectively for businesses. It is possible to adapt to change, to make the best use of the human resource, which is the most valuable element that businesses have, and to create a satisfactory workforce. It is now an obligation to give importance to career and career development to attract and retain highly qualified persons to work in the business (Turkay & Eryilmaz, 2010). In other words, in parallel with human resources, the concept of “career” has begun to take more places in our lives than in the past. According to many researchers, the definition and scope of the career are interpreted in different ways. Especially in a rapidly developing field such as human resource management, the relevant concepts need to be understood more clearly. Recently, companies began to assume human factor as an “asset” rather than assuming it as a depletable “resource”. This improvement gave impetus to a change of career concept. Career which is defined as promotion of an individual began to defined as a process that individuals gain knowledge.

In the tourism industry, there are businesses which operate in a wide range of areas, from hotels to travel agencies, restaurants and entertainment centers. A result of this diversity is that 1 out of every 11 people in the world is directly or indirectly employed in the tourism sector. The tourism sector is one of the most favorable sectors for career development due to the business creation effect that it has, and the ability to give the human a place as its subject. The worker quality is the most important factor, which affects the quality of service in tourism as a service industry. The determining factor for this quality is the positive occupational attitudes of the person to the work. In the tourism sector, employee and guests are easily affected physically and psychologically. Therefore, it is a fact that the tourism employee who receive the tourism education and obtain the occupational qualifications have an important role in increasing the quality of service and accordingly the growth of the business volume and increasing efficiency and business value in saving time, material, money and workforce (Ince & Kendir, 2016). Given all these factors, applications and orientations towards the individuals who want to build a career and improve their careers in the sector are of great importance.