I need some assistance with these assignment. emerging issues in hospitality and tourism Thank you in advance for the help! Popular Australian destinations include Sydney, Melbourne, Queensland, the Gold coast, The Great Barrier Reef and Australian outback. The types of tourists include international tourists, backpackers, and domestic tourists (Weeden, 2011). On the other hand, the hospitality sector cannot be ignored as they go hand in hand with the tourism sector. Apart from providing employment to more than 270,000 people across Australia, it is also a major consumer of locally produced goods and services. It provides a valuable service as a meeting place and entertainment hub for both tourists and locals. A report was done by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC) in 2009, about Australian hotels revealed that the hotel industry provides more than $ 70 million annually in support of sporting and community organizations. The report also reveals that hotels spend more than $70 million each year on staff training and development.

This essay will explore the emerging issues facing the hospitality and tourism industry in Australia. Some of the issues discussed include labor and skill shortage, global financial crisis and changes in Australian demographics.

A skill is the ability to perform a productive task at a certain level of competence (Shah and Burke, 2005). Although skills can often be associated with the acquisition through education and training, skills can also be obtained through informal learning mechanisms and on the job experience. Tourism is about people to people interactions, that is why skills of the industry’s workforce are very important to its ability in attracting more income. Tourism injects about $41 billion into the Australian economy every year. Recent research has shown that Australia is experiencing a shortage in not only labor but skills in the tourism and hospitality industry such that the government is looking for skilled immigrants who would come and work in Australia (Dwyer, 2008, p. 38).