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Tourism and Leisure

Tourism and leisure includes... hotels, motels, youth hostels, mountain refuges, camping and caravan sites, arts facilities, fairs and amusement parks, libraries and archives, museums, botanical and zoological gardens, sports areas and stadiums, gambling and betting and other recreational activities.

This page offers a wealth of information and resources to help you investigate working in this sector or to help you read up to impress in applications and interviews.

Contents include

Overview

The South West has a strong leisure and tourism industry. The nature and distribution of tourism has changed in the South West so that virtually all communities have some form of contact with tourism. Businesses involved in the tourism industry are varied from the provision of accommodation, tourism attractions and retail to catering and transport. The provision of tourism is planned by private, public and the voluntary bodies; with Local Authorities, Central Government and the European Union involved in developing relevant policies.

In 2007 tourism accounted for an estimated 10% of regional employment with total employment, as full time equivalent, of 194, 072 and actual total employment of 262,170.

In 2007 visitor spend totalled £9.3 billion with an estimated 118,758,000 day and staying visitor trips.

People 1st, the sector skills council for the hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism industry reported in 2008 that 11 % of people working in the sector held a Level 4 or higher qualification (degree or above). 43% of the workforce work in the elementary occupations (kitchen assistants, waiting staff and bar staff) and approximately 161,700 work in core occupations (these include hotel and accommodation managers, conference and exhibition mangers, restaurant managers, chefs, cooks, sports and leisure assistances, travel agents, travel and tour guides, air travel assistants, hotel porters, kitchen and catering assistances, waiters, waitresses, bar staff and leisure and theme park attendants).

Type and location of work

The following key facts about the Leisure and Tourism sector were drawn from the Annual Business Inquiry which is a survey that collects employment and financial information from businesses.

The Annual Business Inquiry data shows both the number of businesses in the sector and the number of employees.

In 2007:

There were 9,007 Leisure and Tourism businesses in the South West.
The majority of these businesses (8,871) had fewer than 100 employees.
Only 136 businesses had 100 or more employees.
The sector employed some 103,600 employees (4.5% of the South West workforce).

The main sub-sectors in terms of employee numbers were:

Hotels (36,800 employees).
Other sporting activities (12,900 employees).
Other provision of lodgings (10,500 employees).
Operation of sports arenas and stadiums (9,000 employees).
Activities of travel agencies (6,100 employees).

The main sub-sectors in terms of number of businesses were:

Other sporting activities (1,834 businesses).
Hotels (1,768 businesses).
Activities of travel agencies (953 businesses).
Other provision of lodgings (873 businesses).

The top three Local Authority Areas (LAs), in terms of numbers of Leisure and Tourism businesses located within them, included: Devon (1,614 businesses); Cornwall (1,375 businesses) and, Gloucestershire (935 businesses). Summaries of the key industry facts for these LAs are shown below:

Devon: 99% of businesses (1,596) had less than 100 employees. The main industries in this LA were hotels (326 businesses), other sporting activities5 (274 businesses) and other provision of lodgings6 (245 businesses).
Cornwall: 99% of leisure and tourism businesses in this LA (1,356) had less than 100 employees. The main industries in this LA were hotels (375 businesses); other provision of lodgings6 (243 businesses); and, other sporting activities5 (155 businesses).
Gloucestershire: 99% of businesses (921 businesses) had less than 100 employees. The main industries in this LA included other sporting activities6 (36 businesses); hotels (134 businesses); and, activities of travel agencies (112 businesses).

Major employers

Click here to view the major tourism and leisure employers in the South West.

(Simply tick the 'Leisure and Tourism' box under 'Industry sector' and hit 'search'. This will bring up many of the major leisure and tourism employers in the region).

Job roles in this sector

Explore job roles... in tourism and leisure.

Search for jobs now!

People 1st supports UKSP which offers specialist information and advice on working in the sector.

Skills deficits

Skills deficits are normally understood as either a skills shortage where there are hard to fill vacancies resulting from a lack of skills, qualifications or experience in applicants, or as a skills gap refer to employees that are not proficient at their current job. Sometimes a sector will report the skills deficits specifically as a skills shortage and/or as a skills gap, these are highlighted where available.

Skills gaps or shortages provide opportunities for graduates to fill! Talk to your tutor or careers service about how you can develop skills that are in short supply to give yourself the edge in the job market.

People 1st, the sector skills council for the hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism industry reported in 2008 that 9% of business in the South West had hard to fill vacancies, which is slightly above the national average of 6%.

The National Employer Skills Survey, July 2007, reported that there were an estimated 6,600 vacancies of which 41% were hard to fill and 50% of the hard to fill vacancies were due to skill shortages.

At a national level data on the types of skills shortages and gaps is available from the National Employers Skills Survey 2004 and reported by People 1st in 2006.

Around 6% of hospitality, leisure, travel and tourism industries experience skills shortages throughout England. The majority of these vacancies were in: