Over 1.2 million it is estimated that there were job vacancies in the sectors of hotels, restaurants and travel agencies in Europe in 2022, as a result of the turbulence caused by the pandemic in the market, but also the reluctance of workers to return to their posts after the end of the quarantines, as he points out Michalis Toanoglou, professor of Hospitality and Tourism at Jeonju University in South Korea, speaking to APE-MPE.

“There are certain strong reasons, that workers will not want to return, although from 2021, but especially in 2022, there is a significant demand for jobs in the sector. This is also shown by a survey carried out on a sample of 13,000 people in the USA, according to which more than five out of ten workers (52%) would not return for reasons of better working conditions in other professions, 45% because they find higher wages elsewhere, 29 % because they would like greater benefits, 19% because they would like more flexibility in their schedules and 16% because they would prefer to have the possibility to work remotely» notes the Greek professor, who after 25 years of being involved in the tourism sector as a businessman and manager, as a consultant to businesses and agencies, but also as the director of a Tourism Organization in an island prefecture of Greece, switched to academia, choosing the special case of South Korea, instead of the proposals he had from universities in Switzerland and the Netherlands.

As Mr. Toanoglou, speaker tonight at the 6th conference of the Tourism and Hospitality Academic Program of ACT – The American College of Thessaloniki, says, this picture from the USA is generally also true for Greece, but there are additional reasons that explain the thousands of job vacancies in the sector (estimated at 80,000, including restaurants and shops): the intense seasonality of the Greek tourist product,the inability of a large part of the hotel industry to deal with human resources as an asset, on which it must invest with the aim of competitiveness» and the lack of sufficient strategic partnerships between the tourism education and training structures sector.

The hotel businesses in Greecea, he adds, a significant percentage of family and small and medium-sized companies do not have the philosophy and management that treats human resources as an asset and therefore do not motivate them sufficiently. There are also known cases where workers in the sector, in destinations with a strong tourist profile, cannot even have decent housing conditions at their place of work. As a result of this unsolved problem of human resources, ridiculous situations are recorded, such as the case of a hotel on a large Greek island, which, because not enough maids were found to operate, was turned into rental apartments for the staff of the adjacent university…

According to Mr. Toanoglou, options such as facilitating mobility (from areas where the potential is surplus to destinations where there is a deficit), the establishment of flexible employment in terms of hours or remote work could provide a solution to the problem of human resource insufficiency in processes where this is possible, such as the accounting or more generally the back office, the decent conditions of wages, insurance and housing and the investment in upgrading the skills of the employees.

“In Greece, unfortunately, we do not invest enough in upgrading skills in order to develop a competitive advantage. For example, it is enough for us to find someone to serve as-as, instead of paying and training an employee with skills that will add value to our business» observes the professor, according to which the hotel/tourism industry and the education structures must function as a single system, so as to give surplus value to the country’s human resources and subsequently to its tourism product.

With charter flights from Seoul to Athens the first steps for more tourism from South Korea.

In the meantime, inbound tourism in South Korea has completely different characteristics from that of Greece, the Mediterranean or Europe more broadly, while outbound tourism is gradually starting to take its first steps in our country as well.

Inbound tourism – mainly Chinese, interested in shopping, technology and luxury accommodation – in the country is in its infancy and contributes only 3%-4% of the country’s GDP. As for outbound tourism, however, it counts …almost three Greeces.

According to Mr. Toanoglou, over 30 million South Koreans traveled outside their country in 2019 alone. These are travelers who are not just looking for sun and sea, but a range of experiences related to history, culture and culture. That’s why Greece “suits” them, even though they don’t visit it in large numbers even though they know it, as there aren’t enough organized packages.

The first steps to increase tourist inflows from South Korea to our country have already been taken. Starting next May, charter flights from Seoul to Athens will start on the 4th, 5th, 12th, 19th and 26th of that month.

For a number of years, the possibility of starting regular flights between the capital of South Korea and Athens has been discussed, which according to Mr. Toanoglou, although it is possible, has not yet come to fruition, but there are favorable conditions.