Hospitality: What is its real value and how many does it really employ?

Abstract

What is the economic value of the UK hospitality industry and the wider tourism industry? How many people does each employ? Estimates from different sources provide wildly differing answers, leading to confusion and misunderstanding. Here, the authors, using information appearing in a new publication (Hospitality Digest 2014, 189 pages (PDF format only), is published by the Institute of Hospitality, (www.instituteofhospitality.org). It provides over 100 tables of information on the size and structure of the tourism, hotel, food service and conference industries, with a special section on employment and education with articles by leading educationists and commentators.), discuss the different values put on the size and value of UK tourism and UK hospitality, and suggest that only by improving productivity will creating 300,000 more jobs in the industry be justified.