How does the growth of multicultural workforces in the Maltese tourism Industry affect destination image

Abstract

The travel and tourism sector supports 15.7% of total employment, the present growth in the tourism industry has resulted in labour shortages and multicultural employees are filling gaps at the top and bottom level of tourism workforces. Studies debate the positive and negative aspects of multicultural workforces. The aim of this study is to discover whether the foreign workers in customer facing positions impact the image of place. 100 inbound tourists are questioned on the perception of Maltese people and employees encountered during their stay Findings showed that 84% of respondents prefer to meet the local. Additionally it was found that 34 % of visitors reported that they met an equal number of Maltese and non-Maltese workers indicating a balance between the two in customer facing positions. An interesting finding was that while a similar number of respondents felt that nationality did/not influence their image on the overall experience of Malta however 44% of respondent did feel that the multicultural workforce had somehow changed their image of Maltese hospitality. A general conclusion that the tourism product offered is satisfactory and that while a number of underlying factors such as multicultural workforces could have impacts on the visitor’s image on the local presence it is not having any drastic impacts on the Maltese Islands.