ORANGE COUNTY, Fla. — A professor said he’s worried visitors who come to Central Florida for its hospitality and tourism industry may have a bad experience due to the staffing shortages and not come back.
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“Those who lost their jobs during the pandemic, about 60% are not returning,” said Dr. Robertico Croes with the University of Central Florida’s Rosen College of Hospitality Management.
It’s a drastic drop off that Croes found during a study last year.
“It will continue for sometime; we don’t see it changing,” Croes said. “I see long lines, I see slowing down in terms of service delivery.”
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Now, visitors are experiencing everything from canceled flights to closed restaurants.
It’s something the area experienced several times during the busy holiday travel period, which Croes said is not good for a tourism-driven economy.
“They might decide not to come back to Orlando,” he said. “They might decide, ‘You know what, (wait) ‘til COVID is over. I will not come back to Orlando because that’s the service quality I will get,’ or they will decide to go somewhere else.”
So how will the industry recover?
Croes said companies and businesses need to make up for the lack of loyalty they showed to the people they laid off in 2020, and they need to make sure new hires feel secure in their roles “so that they can see there is career advancement, a career path to go up the ladder as everybody else and continue to American dream.”
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In September, roughly 863,000 hospitality employees quit, which is twice as high as the national quit level, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
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