Soft skills in tourism employees: An analysis of the current situation and the need for future development

This paper focuses on the analysis of the so-called soft skills of tourism workers; skills that are key to improving customer satisfaction and, therefore, to increasing business competitiveness. The data were obtained through a survey of employers in different tourism sub-sectors of several European countries (accommodation, catering, travel agents, tourist attractions and destination management). The investigation's objectives are the following. Firstly, the aim is to find out the level of employees in certain soft skills grouped into personal, communication and diversity management skills. Secondly, it also aims to determine the importance that each of these skills will have for tourism companies in the future, while at the same time observing whether there are differences between the different tourism sub-sectors. Finally, the tools or training methods used by the companies in each of the sub-sectors analysed with their employees to develop these social skills are examined. This analysis will allow us to identify the soft skills towards which companies and organisations should orient their training plans. The conclusions obtained can also be transferred to the academic sphere so that the different training centres and institutions can place greater emphasis on these social skills, which are the key to a sector such as tourism.