A tourist's payment can support workers and suppliers. Check the pay and security of that work as well as the number of jobs.
Tourist spending can support work at several points in a trip. Visitors buy transport, accommodation, food and guiding. Travel agents in the generating region may earn income, as do businesses and suppliers at the destination. Effects are often concentrated at destinations, where many tourism facilities and jobs are located.
Formal employment generally follows registered and regulated arrangements, such as a hotel job with a recognised contract and social protection. Informal work lacks effective registration or employment protection. Some unregistered guiding or vending may be informal.
Business size alone does not tell you which applies. A small business can be formal, and a worker in a registered firm may still lack protection. Informal work is not simply another term for low-skilled work or criminal activity.
A visitor's payment becomes business revenue. The business can use it to pay workers and suppliers, who may spend their income locally. However, revenue is not profit: costs must be paid. More jobs also do not automatically mean better jobs. Pay, hours, seasonal demand and job security affect the benefit to households. The International Labour Organization identifies both tourism's job potential and continuing problems with informality and working conditions.
Step by step
Direct demand
The tourist buys accommodation, a meal, transport or an experience.
Employment and suppliers
Providers pay workers and purchase goods or services to meet that demand.
Quality and distribution
Check wages, security and who receives income rather than stopping at a job count.
Worked example: A meal has several links
Imagine a visitor buying a restaurant meal. The restaurant pays cooks, service staff and a vegetable supplier. The supplier can benefit without ever meeting the visitor. Buying ingredients locally keeps more of that payment in the destination than importing them.
Watch out for this
Every street seller is informal and every hotel worker has secure employment.
Check registration and employment arrangements. Appearance or business size alone does not establish a worker's protection or status.
Check your understanding
What additional evidence is most useful after a destination reports more tourism jobs?
- Only the colour of workers' uniforms.
- Pay, working hours, job security and who can access the jobs.
- An assumption that every new job is permanent and well paid.