Current and upcoming projects

Fair Hospitality Work

Engagement with Employers, Impact Development Fund, University of Strathclyde (2023/24)

This study aims to stimulate conversations with industry representatives on the role of management in fair hospitality work and improving hospitality workplace cultures.

Irma Booyens; Anastasios Hadjisolomou; Dennis Nickson and Tom Baum (University of Strathclyde) with Olga Gjerald and Tone Therese Linge (University of Stavanger)

New Zealand Tourism and Hospitality Employee Experiences Survey 2024

The project will build on the successful Hospitality and Tourism Employee Survey run by AUT in 2022. The current project has been commissioned by the Ministry of Business, Innovation and Employment to build on the benchmark data provided in 2022. This research explores the contractual and relational nature of employment relationships in the tourism and hospitality sectors. The survey will collect information about the terms, conditions and benefits in employment agreements and ask how those are managed by employers and employees. This study will cover both tourism and hospitality employees – survey will kick off in May 2024. 

We are looking for partner countries who would like to run a comparative survey this year. Contact David Williamson.

How can tourism maximise the positive impact and dignity for Indigenous people? A capabilities approach

BA/ Leverhulme Small Grant.

Applying a qualitative microethnographic approach, and following Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach, this project will identify the abilities, resources, and external conditions that enable Indigenous groups in Mexico to develop and manage tourism enterprises that will support economic and socio-cultural development and lift individual and collective dignity approach.  

Anke Winchenbach (University of Surrey) and Blanca Camargo (Universidad de Monterrey/ Mexico). 

Humanising Food Delivery Work in Australia: A Toolkit

This project applies a lens of hospitality to the experiences of temporary migrants who deliver food by bicycle in Australia’s “gig” economy. We collected data using an ethnographic approach including face-to-face & digital participant-observation, shadowing workers by bicycle and car, and semi-structured interviews. This report offers a toolkit for stakeholders (including workers, restaurants, customers, platforms, and policymakers) to improve food delivery. 

Tyler Riordan, Richard N.S. Robinson and Gerhard Hoffstaedter (The University of Queensland)

New Work - the new reality?

Leadership and human resources management in digitalised working environments: Need for innovation and action strategies for the service industry, HTA High-tech Agenda Bavaria

The research group's planned programme examines new working environments and the necessary management requirements and skills in the service sector as Germany's most important economic sector with a focus on the tourism and hospitality industry. 

Markus Pillmayer, Celine Chang and Simon Werther (Munich University of Applied Sciences)