Arca Publishing

Bakas, Fiona

Costa, Carlos

Breda, Zelia

DurÃ£o, MarÃ­lia

 
Title: Will the ‘Ideal Tourism Worker’ Please Stand Up? Analysing Gender Essentialism within 
Tourism Workforce Recruitment through Flexibility Discourse 
Author: Fiona Bakas, Carlos Costa, Zelia Breda, & Marília Durão 
Affiliation: Universidade de Aveiro and GOVCOPP 
Contact: fiona.bakas@ua.pt 
Session type: Presentation 
 
Abstract: 
Attracting and keeping skilled professionals is one the largest challenges facing the 
tourism industry, illustrated by the very high employee turnover rates in tourism (Baum, 2013; 
Deery & Jago, 2009; Santero-Sanchez et al., 2015). High employee turnover rates are largely 
attributed to tourism work’s low-paid nature but also to the difficulties in maintaining a work-life 
balance because of the long, irregular, and unsociable work hours and shift work characteristic of 
tourism labour. Social reproduction encompasses all the activities undertaken to maintain the 
present and future generation (e.g., caring, housework) and is essential to the capitalist process of 
accumulation. However, responsibility for social reproduction is often connected with 
femininity, meaning that female tourism workers have or are perceived to have less flexibility at 
work. ‘Flexibility’ is itself a highly ambiguous and debated term within the context of labour 
relations (Brumley, 2014). In this paper, flexibility is defined as the employee characteristic to be 
available to work whenever the employer wants him/her to. 
Gender roles can play a significant role in how the ‘ideal tourism worker’ discourse is 
constructed. However, there is limited literature that investigates how gender roles influence 
tourism recruitment practices. Hence this paper’s main research objective is to investigate how 
gender roles influence constructions of ‘ideal tourism worker’ discourse, through the lens of the 
employee characteristic of flexibility in tourism recruitment. The impetus to critique existing 
‘ideal tourism worker’ discourse is rooted in the idea that the neoclassical economics model of 
‘rational economic man’, according to which all individuals operate solely with the aim of 
creating more individual profit, is flawed. From a feminist economics angle, agency cannot be 
reduced to a simple case of “individual utility maximisation strategy” (Gammage et al., 2016, p. 
2). 
Qualitative and quantitative data from a unique three-year project on the role of gender in 
tourism labour in Portugal informs this study. Quantitative data was gathered between September 
2013 and March 2015 via online surveys, 401 of which were eventually considered valid. In the 
questionnaires, the respondents were asked to rate criteria that commonly influence companies’ 
recruitment practices. Qualitative data was co-created through focus groups with 79 participants 
over the period November 2013 to March 2014. Qualitative and quantitative research 
participants were tourism managers from the public and private tourism sectors from all seven 
Portuguese administrative regions (mainland and islands). Thematic analysis methods were used 
for a systematic examination of the collected data, using a mix of deductive and inductive 
approaches in the iterative process. 
Data analysis suggests that whist there is an overall impression that attaining ‘ideal 
worker’ status ‘all has to do with the attitude, availability, professionalism and the willingness to 
accomplish’ (P45), something is influencing female workers’ ability to adhere to current ‘ideal 
tourism worker’ models. In-depth analysis of focus groups reveals how the male hegemony 
within ‘ideal tourism worker’ discourse is perpetuated: through silences. Recruiters do not 
 
specifically talk about what good male worker characteristics are, but do talk about good female 
worker characteristics. The connection between social reproductive gender roles and flexibility is 
evident in the qualitative data, where managers comment on how women are less available 
because they choose to prioritise family over work. However, some tourism managers in this 
study challenge ‘ideal worker’ discourse, which excludes women because of their perceived 
unavailability, by pointing out that female employees are often more available than male 
employees. Tourism managers also challenge the masculinised ‘ideal worker’ norm, by 
introducing certain feminine characteristics into the ‘ideal worker’ discourse. They do this by 
saying how female workers are better than male workers in various ways, such as being more 
responsible and more attentive to detail than men. 
We hope that critical evaluations of the dialectics between power and knowledge that 
construct norms which define economic activities, such as the present one, can contribute to the 
creation of a more socially just society and economically viable tourism industry. 
 
References: 
Baum, T. (2015). Human resources in tourism: Still waiting for change? – A 2015 reprise.  
Tourism Management, 50, 204–212. 
Baum, T. (2013). International Perspectives on Women and Work in Hotels, Catering, and  
Tourism, Geneva. 
Brumley, K.M. (2014). “Now, we have the same rights as men to keep our jobs”: Gendered  
perceptions of opportunity and obstacles in a Mexican workplace. Gender, Work, & 
Organization, 21(3), 217–230. 
Deery, M., & Jago, L. (2009). A framework for work-life balance practices: Addressing the  
needs of the tourism industry. Tourism and Hospitality Research, 9(2), 97–108. 
Gammage, S., Kabeer, N., & van der Meulen Rodgers, Y. (2016). Voice and agency: Where are  
we now? Feminist Economics, 22(1), 1–29. 
Santero-Sanchez, R., et al. (2015). Gender differences in the hospitality industry: A Job quality  
index. Tourism Management, 51, 234–246. 
 
 
 
 
  


English

Will the âIdeal Tourism Workerâ Please Stand Up? Analysing Gender Essentialism within Tourism Workforce Recruitment through Flexibility Discourse

Assipova, Zhanna

Amir, Balnur

 
Title: Investigation of Using Belgian Case of Social Tourism in Almaty 
Author: Zhanna Assipova & Balnur Amir 
Affiliation: Kazakh National University 
Contact: assipova.zhanna@gmail.com 
 
Abstract: 
After decades of the Soviet era and a communist and socialist way of tourism provision, 
Kazakhstan has moved to a market economy. Nowadays, tourism in Kazakhstan is driven by 
market economy rules. However, state and community have the intention to preserve social 
tourism. This paper examines different cases of social tourism all over the world and finds an 
appropriate case which will be suitable for Kazakhstan’s society. The main idea is to determine 
the opportunity of organizing social tourism by the Belgian case of “Holiday Participation 
Centre” and check out readiness of supply and demand representatives for social tourism 
development. This paper presents the findings of an exploratory, qualitative study with potential 
social tourism beneficiaries, and tourism industry’s private stakeholders. Consequently, it is 
suggested that the proposed case of social tourism may be a cost-effective addition to social 
policy and also drive development of tourism in the area. 
 
 
  


Investigation of Using Belgian Case of Social Tourism in Almaty

Choi, Suh-hee

What Tourists Seek in Fair Travel: A Case of Korean Participants of Good Travel Programmes to Asian Destinations

CTS 7: Palma

Goby, Elizabeth

1 
 
Grape Smoke 
Elizabeth Goby 
His hand was warm in mine. Everything was warm. The heat was cranked to fight off the 
chill coming in from the wide-open windows. We were smoking little fruit-flavored cigars, little 
tan tubes with gold tips ends. 
“No way! You tell me first,” I laughed at him, twisting some more in my seat so I could 
see him better. I didn’t know how to hold the cigar, but I tried my best to look mature as I 
brought it to my lips. Let it rest between your first and second fingers. Don’t squish it. Let it go 
when it rests on your lips. Breath in deep before you pluck it back. Don’t cough! Whatever you 
do, don’t you dare cough.  
“No. Nuh uh. No way, no how.” He blew out his smoke in a straight and steady stream 
and tossed me a sly grin. His smoke hit the steering wheel in a ghostly explosion and dissolved.  
I couldn’t help smiling back. I didn’t know if it was the blast from the heater making my 
cheeks warm or if it was how he looked at me. The seat groaned softly when I settled back into 
it. He let his left arm dangle out the driver side window, and I watched him hold the cigar 
between his thumb and tab it with the top of his middle finger. The ashes leapt from the edge of 
his cigar and dove down into the snow. He pondered it a moment, wondering if it was worth 
smoking the very last bit that ran just before the filter, but decided against and flicked the 
remaining gold cigar out of the window.  I wonder if it hissed when it hit the snow, but the music 
was too loud and we didn’t hear it.  
I shivered when goosebumps rose up and down my arms. The window was open on my 
right and the winter wind was making itself welcome. We couldn’t close them because he didn’t 
want his jeep to smell like smoke. If it smelt like smoke when he got home, his Dad would lose 
his shit and then no more driving privileges. I watch him as he lights another. It rested 
effortlessly, dangling dangerously on the edge of his lips, he ducked his head and cupped his 
hand over the flame. The car filled with the scent of grape as he puffed to get it going.  He was 
blurred by a cloud of smoke curling around him as he worked at short quick puffs to make sure it 
2 
 
was lit all the way around. His collar was popped and his hair was messy from the wind passing 
through both our open windows; he looks like possibility to me.  
“You asked me first, now you have to tell me first.” I smirked at him before trying again 
to look good with that little stick poised at my lips. It was my first one, ever. The grape taste 
filled your mouth and seemed to stick to your teeth. I couldn’t blow my smoke out in a smooth 
line like how he did; mine just kind of escaped out of my mouth when I opened it. His was full of 
direction and purpose. Mine was just let loose in a weak puff. He said it was cute.  
“I guess that’s fair,” he laughed and then grimaced, barring his teeth playfully. “What if I 
don’t like anyone?” 
“Then you’re fucking lying!” I shot back to him. “You already told me you do. Fess up.” 
My nose burned when I let loose another directionless cloud. My eyes stung a bit because of the 
smoke, but I wasn’t going to let that show. I hid behind my hair and a smile.  
His left wrist rested lazily on the wheel as he looked ahead out the windshield. The snow-
covered baseball diamonds light up because of the headlights. It looks ghostly. The edge of town 
wasn’t a friendly place there was nothing out here but deep ruts in the snow from snow cleaning, 
and deteriorating fences bent down from their framing and curling in on themselves. The 
headlights made the snow in front of us look bright and startling, but all the snow beyond that 
melted into darkness and shadows.  
“Do you like this song?” he asked, turning on the radio before taking a drag. The song 
was some Blink 182 song that I was trying hard to like because he liked them. The little red 
embers lighting up his face as he inhaled cast him in a warm glow.  
 Hello there, the angel from my nightmare… 
I rolled my eyes but let him change the subject. “Hey, show me again how to flick the ash 
off?” I asked him, offering up the smoke in my hand awkwardly. There was quite a long line of 
ash building on the end of it, but I had no idea how to flick it just right so the ash leapt off. I 
didn’t want to look silly. He took it from me, his cold hand brushed my fingers when he did. I 
leaned over to see what he was doing with it as he held it out the window.  
3 
 
“Like this,” he said before running his thumb quickly along the butt end so it bobbed and 
the ashes dove down into the snow like a driver off a board.  
I cannot sleep and I cannot dream tonight… 
“Oh, okay,” I said and clumsily took it back from him, settling back into my seat as I 
puffed at it again. My mouth felt cloudy and sticky from smoke and grape. The heat still cranked. 
It was almost like a sauna in that jeep. I had taken off my coat earlier and now I was just hot and 
uncomfortable. But every now and again a violent icy breeze sweeps through the car and I’m 
reminded why we kept the heat on. It was a constant assault of hot and cold. The artificial 
warmth from the front of the car beat down on us until a violent waft of winter wind brought in 
the soft dusty layer off the snow drifts. The snow settles on our arms and melted almost instantly.  
“Seriously, you have to tell me. You have to, have to, have to,” I smiled at him playfully 
and chanted. He flicked his cigar out the window, half smoked, and he turned to look at me. 
Twisting in his seat so his focus was all on me. His face was no longer fun. His playful smiles 
left and he looked serious. Suddenly the car felt a lot hotter than it had a moment ago.  
“What if...” he paused. 
His bright eyes flicked down nervously between us. The music got quiet behind us and 
the hot didn’t feel so hot or the cold so cold. His face was soft but serious: business. Of course, I 
knew what he was going to say, we both did. I knew that he liked me, and he knew that I knew, 
but the saying it made it real. We’d spent the past few summer months trying to sit beside each 
other at every bonfire without making it obvious. We would sit beside each other but angle away 
so we could turn and focus on our own friends, our knees knocking occasionally. He’d make 
smores and hand them all around the fire, but when he’d made the perfect one he would present 
it to me, out of order from the circle. When I didn’t pursue and neither did he, the constant texts 
became occasional texts, the meaningful glances across a busy room of friends turned sour. But 
here we were, in his jeep at 2 am, a few months past summer. If not for the gearshift, we’d still 
be knocking knees.  
I’m still staring at him and he’s still staring down and I can tell he’s having some big 
internal battle about whether or not to say it. And there’s a little part of me that’s beginning to 
4 
 
doubt every stolen glance over every fire and every midnight text of “r u up?” and every time I 
thought there was something when maybe there was nothing.  
 Oh god, what if there was nothing? 
“…if it were you that I liked?” His eyes finally flick up and he’s studying me and he 
doesn’t look nervous, scared, hopeful or happy. He is expressionless as he waits for my answer.  
And I am all butterflies and bright red cheeks and I can’t breathe, but maybe that’s the 
cigar I’ve been trying to smoke for a while now, and I grin back at him and then quickly try to 
smile slyly, “Well, maybe I like you too.” 
His hands are warm in mine and he’s smiling a little, and I think he’s gone shy and he 
tells me that he wants to date me. But not yet.  
“I’m just dealing with some stuff, but I once I got it all figured out we can totally date! I 
just don’t know if I’m ready for a relationship right now, but once I figure things out...” He tells 
me and I smile and nod because he likes me and I like him and he wants me and I want him and 
that’s all that matters.  
He gives me a smile then, looking almost relieved. Then he’s reaching across to me and 
his hand is kind of hovering by my cheek, he was just about to touch it but then paused just 
before skin would have met skin. I was looking up at him but his eyes were locked onto my lips. 
My cigar was lying forgotten and dead in my hand, the ash smeared onto my jeans. His breath 
smelt like smoke and grapes and his hand met my cheek and he went for it.  
“Are you going to kiss me!?” I blurt out because that’s never happened before and I 
wanted to make sure that I understood what was happening.  
His expression doesn’t change when he replies. “Yes. Is that okay?”  
He’s awkwardly hovering, his face nearly touching mine. His one hand on my cheek and 
his other arm on the center console holding him up as he leans heavily over to me. He keeps 
leaning in, inch by inch by inch, and I keep leaning back. The open window seemed more 
inviting. 
And something tells me to wait so I say, “Let’s wait till we’re dating.”  
5 
 
He nods and is gone instantly. He sits back in his seat and I toss the long dead cigar out 
the window.  
Don't waste your time on me. You're already the voice inside my head. 
He began to drive away before the windows roll up. The chill is stolen from the air 
almost instantly. The full onslaught of heat hits us like a wall. He peels away from the baseball 
diamonds and turns back towards town. His hand slips away from mine. All I can taste is grape 
and smoke and I bet he tastes the same.  
 
 
 


Grape Smoke

MacLaren, Jake

Don\u27t Look at Me

A safari in Africa becomes a journey of painful self-discovery

Cooke, Royden

You Make Yourself Human

Zillinger, Malin

Holding on to Analogue Times: The Resistance towards Digital Implicitness

Suleman, Rukeya

Hollinshead, Keith

Culture as Impermanence: A Liquid Modern Critique of the Interpretive Capacity of Tourism Today

Kimber, Simon

 
 
Title: Challenging Eurocentrism in Tourism Studies: How Performative and Embodied 
Empirical Insights into Chinese Backpackers and Professional Hosts Can Contribute to 
Discussions of Eurocentrism in Tourism Research 
Author: Simon Kimber 
Affiliation: University of Surrey 
Contact: s.kimber@surrey.ac.uk 
Session Type: Presentation 
 
Abstract: 
In recent years, critics have increasingly accused modernist approaches in tourism of 
being ‘Eurocentric’ or ‘Anglo-Western Centric’ in their focus and epistemological underpinnings 
(Cohen & Cohen, 2015). Such arguments have arisen in part from the rise of Asian tourism and 
its associated focus (e.g., Ong, 2005; Muzaini, 2006; Chan, 2006; Teo & Leong, 2006; Ong & du 
Cros, 2012), but also from Critical Tourism’s earlier calls for a more general fundamental rethink 
about the paradigms and norms which shape scholarship on tourism (Winters, 2009). Building on 
Tourism’s critical turn’s criticism of the positivistic nature and ‘business laden prerogatives’ of 
tourism studies (Pritchard & Morgan, 2007; Ren et al., 2007), proponents of the Eurocentrism 
critique such as Winter (2009) and Cohen & Cohen (2015) have been calling for a paradigmatic 
shift in the field of tourism, whether on the epistemological or the theoretical level, to deal with 
the issues raised in this critique. 
However, academics are still very much at the stage of proposing a range of innovative 
approaches in their own attempts to find suitable ways of re-orienting tourism (using a range of 
Critical Theories), and it is this author’s opinion that, as yet, no one dominant approach or 
paradigm has emerged as a clear front runner. This paper and this author’s ongoing research 
studies aim to explore how performativity and embodiment, based on empirical insights into 
Chinese backpackers and professional hosts, can contribute to discussions of Eurocentrism in 
tourism research. 
Contextually, this author’s research is investigating whether the use of performance and 
dramaturgical analysis can provide an insightful way of understanding and conceptualising 
backpacker–host encounters. Earlier studies of host perceptions towards tourism have been 
criticised on a number of fronts: firstly for their positivistic, business-orientated nature; secondly, 
for their limiting notions of representation; but thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, for their 
over-dependence on theories developed from the experiences of western sociology and then 
western tourism (Cohen, 1995; Winter, 2009; Moufakkir & Reisinger, 2013; Cohen & Cohen, 
2015). 
In an attempt to conceptually and empirically reorient tourism, recent ethnographic 
fieldwork in Northern Thailand aims to assess the contribution of the performative turn and 
provides an exciting way of reconceptualising tourist–host encounters, where ‘gazing’ and 
‘performing’ (through host–guest encounters, which act as the embodied actions of the gaze) 
become hybrid practices, almost indistinguishable from one and another according to Larsen 
(2011). On an empirical level, early analysis seems to indicate that the study of host–guest 
encounters as the corporeal and embodied actions of the gaze (host and tourist) can facilitate a 
deeper and more meaningful understanding of gazes. But perhaps more important is whether this 
study of ‘performing bodies’ and ‘corporeal actions’ can contribute in some small way to 
providing a more universal understanding of tourist behaviour, one that is not constrained by 
western sociology and its roots in western tourism.  


Challenging Eurocentrism in Tourism Studies: How Performative and Embodied Empirical Insights into Chinese Backpackers and Professional Hosts Can Contribute to Discussions of Eurocentrism in Tourism Research

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