HC Tourism. Profile and Trends of Human Capital in the Tourism Sector

Abstract Tourism is a strategic sector in Portugal since it generates employment and it is a factor of economic and social development. The tourism sector not only has an intensive need of labour force but also provides employment opportunity to a range of qualifications. Being an industry of people, it directly depends on the performance of activities, skills, professionalism, quality and competitiveness. The main objective of this article is to present the HC Tourism project, which aims to seek and understand the needs of skills in tourism industry by studying the active companies that belong to the tourism economic subsectors, by region and subsector of economic activity. The methodology used in this project is based on a qualitative and quantitative approach, throughout the collection of primary and secondary data. The qualitative approach was based on a literature review which allowed to compile a list of 150 skills, divided under four domains: i) soft skills; ii) hard skills; iii) management skills; iv) transversal skills. The quantitative approach returned primary data, which were collected through an online survey implemented and sent to national tourist entrepreneurs, expecting to develop the ideal profile of the tourism human resources, based on a sample of 555 answers.