Recruitment a sticking point for Gulf hospitality

Alamy/Tasfoto

• 23,500 recruits expected this year
• 30% staff turnover cited
• Work-life balance an issue

The tourism industry is expected to support the creation of thousands of jobs in the UAE and wider GCC this year, yet hospitality firms might struggle to fill many of these vacancies.

Heightened competition, the physical and emotional intensity of the work, and more flexible professional alternatives are among the factors luring prospective staff in other directions.

“Historically, hotels were seen as a glitzy, glamorous place to work and many youngsters flocked to hotel schools to learn the trade,” says Tatiana Veller, managing director of Stirling Hospitality Advisors. 

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“Gradually, however, people realised hospitality is hard work. In guest-facing jobs, one needs to be extra personable yet organised, observe policies but be empathic, and maintain a positive demeanour, even when dealing with a difficult guest.” 

Tourism is becoming a major driver of economic growth in the Gulf. The UAE, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, Oman and Bahrain are all vying to develop infrastructure and meet demand from a rising number of annual visitors.

Major global and regional hotel chains are also expanding fast across the region. They are adding thousands of hotel rooms by either building new properties or taking over existing ones from their rivals. 

The eventual success of this flurry of activity rests on the sector’s ability to recruit the necessary number of skilled and unskilled workers.

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According to Vijay Raghavan, group finance director for Arenco Group, that’s among the biggest roadblocks to the continued expansion of the regional hospitality industry, second only to mounting geopolitical conflict.

“As we speak, our rate of turnover across all the hotels, across all the brands is around 30 percent,” Raghavan said during an Alpen Capital webinar in June. 

Arenco owns multiple hospitality assets in Dubai, and directly manages those under its Golden Sands brand, while outsourcing others to brands like Hilton and Marriott.

New market conditions

With ever-increasing new properties coming into the market, Raghavan said that he doesn’t expect this situation to change. “The first readily available source to recruit is the existing trained manpower.”

According to the latest economic impact research by the World Travel & Tourism Council, which came out in April, hospitality-related jobs in the Gulf nation increased by 41,000 in 2023. Another 23,500 recruits are expected this year.

Colliers estimated in June 2022 that the hospitality industry across the Gulf would need an additional 91,000 skilled staff in the four years to 2026, with the UAE and Saudi Arabia requiring the near totality of that at 82,000 people.

Dubai Tourism

However according to Nicolas Nasra, head of hospitality and tourism at Colliers in Mena, attracting skilled and motivated individuals remains challenging for hotels across all brands and positions.

“Many former employees have found roles in other industries that offer more flexible work hours and better compensation,” he says.

“This trend, which began in 2020, has persisted as the industry continues to rebuild and adapt to new market conditions.”

Challenges in recruiting for hospitality stem from the long hours typical of the industry, required physical presence, and strong competition for talent. Workers can be more selective in the jobs they pick or switch between positions more frequently, sometimes as often as every couple of months. 

Additional costs

Technology is already making operations more efficient at hotels across the regions and globe, but it cannot entirely replace manpower in an industry that relies so heavily on warmth and personal touch. 

New innovative platforms streamline the management of reservations, check-in and check-out procedures, and back-office work, they are likely to leave staff with the hardest, customer facing part of the job, Veller adds

“This is very difficult to do if you approach your work as nothing more than a job that needs doing,” she says. 

“This is the next challenge all employers in the industry will face in our increasingly online, virtual, isolated, segregated, individualistic society. Finding people who are willing to deal with other people for [relatively, not much] money.”

To get there hotel chains are increasingly focusing on developing talent internally, training interns or frontline personnel to rise all the way to management. 

They are also working to offer competitive compensation packages and adapt to a generational shift whereby younger staff put a bigger emphasis on work-life balance.

“To attract and retain talent hotels may need to increase salaries and offer more benefits, impacting overall expense,” says Nasra.

“These additional costs may inevitably be passed on to customers to preserve healthy profit margins.”