The crisis of labour in the tourism and hospitality sectors during the pandemic: discourses and strategies

This article deals with the impact of the Covid-19 pandemic on tourism and hospitality workers. Our aim is to provide a preliminary description of the crisis of labour during the health crisis from two different points of view. First, we consider some official documents and reports published by the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO) during the health crisis, with the aim of analysing the UNWTO representation of labour in the tourism sector. Second, we describe the measures taken by the government of the United Kingdom to support the tourism sector as well as the responses of hospitality workers – and their unions – to the crisis. Recalling that in this sector labour conditions are often below the standards established by collective agreements and that severe abuses and violations of workers’ rights have been reported, we argue that the representations of labour and the governments’ strategies during the pandemic may prefigure a return to the “normality”, i.e. to the severe exploitation of labour in tourism and hospitality.