The year 2022 is one set to be remembered for a long time to come. While the global COVID-19 pandemic crisis has dramatically slowed the world down and, in some cases, even brought it to a halt since the beginning of 2020, this year has largely seen economies and countries gradually opening up their borders and business as usual resuming in most parts of the world. We have experienced a phenomenon that became known as revenge buying, where consumers unleashed their pent-up desire to go on shopping sprees (because who would buy new clothes during a crisis when we’re mostly confined to our homes anyway?). Now, we see consumers taking advantage of a combination of lifted border restrictions and high vaccination rates to partake in revenge travel. Good news for the tourism industry, so battered by the many restrictions imposed in the last two years. Except that one thing hasn’t changed: It is still a highly labor-intensive industry with a track record of being slow to adopt new practices and technologies– and we have a labor shortage.
In this series, we speak with four professionals about their views on the global labor shortage in hospitality, the challenges they are facing, and how they are coping and adapting. Our four interviewees span the industry with diverse experience and backgrounds: Stephen Burke, Founder of Robosize Me, Rosanna Maietta, EVP Communications & PR at the American Hotel & Lodging Association (AHLA), Danica Smith, Director of Product Engagement at Shiji Group, and Gefferson Alves, Managing Director at Ba’ra Hotel Joao Pessoa. You can read our first conversation with Danica here and our second conversation with Gefferson here. Today we connect with Stephen Burke, serial entrepreneur and founder of Robosize ME.