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1. Introduction
The hospitality environment is complex and diverse, facing many challenges (structural and perceptual) relating to “low productivity, high levels of labour turnover, poor remuneration, demanding working conditions and limited opportunities of personal development” (Chung and D’Annunzio-Green, 2018; Baum, 2008, p. 725). The labour profile of the hospitality industry has changed over the years because of social, economic and political factors such as immigration, labour mobility and Brexit. The hospitality and tourism industry has been considered based on technical skills, where most of the work has been characterised as low value, demanding few conceptual or knowledge-driven attributes (Baum, 2008). Solnet et al. (2016) propose that hospitality customers seek to gain more power and control of their experience in view to the growing demand for the “experience economy” which has an impact on customer-facing staff as they are now required to enable co-creation experiences. This adds to the technical skills required especially in knowledge-based positions.
Clark et al. (2017) and Deery (2009) added low pay, seasonality and poor work-life balance as factors intensifying the challenges in the industry. One of the main challenges in the industry is high employee turnover, which is common because of working unsociable hours, high levels of casualization (Deery, 2009) and routinized jobs (Iverson and Currivan, 2003). The industry is also characterised using migrant labour to address temporary needs making the challenges eminent and calling for solutions to human resource challenges. Competition for labour has grown and employers are looking to attract talent. The diversity of the workforce in terms of age, race and culture has put pressure on employers to implement diversity management in managing talent (D’Annunzio-Green, 2008). Baum (2008) proposes that talent in the context of hospitality and tourism does not necessarily have the same meaning as in other sectors. Defining talent in this context is a challenging process, which should focus on inclusiveness and an open-minded approach to training and development (Baum, 2008). He also suggests that hospitality managers should adopt creative strategies to talent retention. This paper builds upon this argument with empirical evidence on providing a definition of talent and talent management in hospitality and more specifically in the luxury hotel sector.
Although talent and talent management (TM) have received increasing attention over the past decade...