Hospitality, Catering, Tourism and Cleaning

“A guest never forgets the host who had treated him kindly.” (Homer, Greek writer, 7th century BC)

Cities, food, football, golf, mountains, rugby, sea, skiing, wildlife – Scotland has a lot to offer. Our tourist board, visitscotland, is doing its best to attract more visitors each year. Their experience of Scotland depends on the quality of service they get from the people working in the hospitality, catering, tourism and cleaning sectors.

This industry provides visitors – from home or abroad – with:

• accommodation


• food


• holidays


• visitor attractions and recreational activities.

Hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism employs about 201,200 people in Scotland, 8% of the Scottish workforce and 11% of the workforce in the Highlands and Islands.

The size of the workforce fell by about 3% in 2008, due to the recession, but is expected to grow by over 7% by 2017. There will be a growing demand for graduate entrants in the next few years.

Although the industry employs slightly more women than men, the number of women in senior management jobs is low. It employs more part time workers than most sectors, particularly in less skilled and lower paid jobs. And, it has a higher than average labour turnover. The workforce is also younger than most industries, around half of workers are under 31. Of course, it employs a lot of students and casual staff because of seasonal jobs. In the last few years some parts of the industry have fared better than others:

• the restaurant industry grew by 28%


• food and service management grew by 12%


• the hotel sector grew by 11%


• travel and tourism fell by 37% - in part due to the closure of travel agencies as online travel services grew


• the pub sector fell by 13%


• there was a 35% increase in hotel and restaurant managers


• a 65% increase in hotel and accommodation managers
• cleaning services has also grown, it now employs almost 60,000 people in Scotland - most are female, and most work part time.

• friendly


• outgoing


• helpful


• well organised


• willing to work hard and sometimes work long hours


• willing to go the extra mile to make people feel welcome.

You can get into some jobs in this career area without formal qualifications. You can start in some jobs with few or no qualifications and work your way up to be a manager. While you are working you can often study for a Scottish Vocational Qualification (SVQ).

For other jobs you need qualifications before you start looking for a job. There are full time courses in a lot of hospitality, catering and tourism subjects at all levels from a 1 year National Certificate (NC), through Higher National Certificate (HNC) and Higher National Diploma (HND) to a 4 year degree.

The jobs in this career area have been divided into 4 sectors:

• Hospitality general


• Cleaning and related services


• Food preparation, cooking and service


• Travel and tourism.

Sources

Hospitality, Leisure, Travel and Tourism Industries: Scottish Sector Skills Profile (2007) - Futureskills Scotland

Cleaning Fact Sheet (2009) - Asset Skills

State of the Nation Report: Executive Summary Scotland (2009) - People 1st

People 1st is the Sector Skills Council for the Hospitality, Leisure, Travel and Tourism Industries (http://www.people1st.co.uk/)

Visitscotland website (http://www.visitscotland.com/)