2025 proved to be a banner year for the global tourism industry: the UN’s World Tourism Barometer reported last month international tourist arrivals were up by four percent as of 31st December 2025, clocking in at 1.52 overnight travellers, over 60 million more than the total seen in 2024.
Robust demand and increased air connectivity also led to a new record in terms of global tourism revenues: US$2.2 trillion at last count.
Despite these positive developments, global tourism is actually struggling to keep up with the vast numbers, and the ongoing human resources crisis facing the industry is the crux of the matter.
By crisis, we aren’t exactly talking about a shortfall in staff numbers; though that is part of the equation, the key issue here is the quality of staff coming on board.
As education and training have a great deal to do with this, we pose a question to industry professionals: is it time to rethink tourism education on both regional and global levels?
An incredibly young and inexperienced workforce
Keep this in mind: data from the World Travel & Tourism Council shows that over 50 percent of the global tourism workforce is under the age of 25, meaning that these are mostly fresh graduates, interns, working students of university age, and even high school students covering part-time stints.
While some of these youthful employees were adequately trained through their university courses or vocational classes, it is increasingly apparent that the bulk require more training and guidance.
Indeed, it is estimated that, by the end of the current decade, over 882,000 tourism workers globally will require more extensive education and training.
This could spell potential disaster for tourism as professionals in the industry are required to have an extensive range of skills to handle both front- and back-end operations.
Also, a people-centric industry will struggle if its workers do not have the relevant skills and capabilities to handle various situations on an in-situ / in-person basis.
Current issues in global tourism education
The ongoing shortage in staff numbers notwithstanding, it is becoming increasingly obvious that training and education are the primary issues affecting human resources in tourism.
Experts pointed out several pressing matters related to this, with particular emphasis on the following:
- An obvious gap between existing curricula and shifting industry requirements As a highly dynamic industry, tourism and the related disciplines of commercial aviation and hospitality are evolving at a rapid rate and curricular development at schools struggles to keep up. Indeed, what may be in the syllabus now may actually be obsolete by the time a student graduates and enters the workforce;
- Rapid technological evolution and adoption Related to the first item, most tourism curricula offered do not include digital skills training or, at the very least, an introduction to the relevant technologies used in practice. Admittedly, some schools in partnership with hotel management firms or airlines give their students an orientation into technologies in use, but not all institutions have such an advantage;
- The need to incorporate sustainability practices Much like technological training, universities and vocational schools are struggling to incorporate green tourism practices into their existing syllabi, along with the inclusion of concepts related to regenerative tourism, total inclusivity in operations, and environmental management; and
- The effectiveness of hybrid training modalities Another point to consider is that many tourism professionals who joined the workforce straight out of school between 2022 and 2023 did not have the same level of interactive training as those who graduated before the pandemic. While hybrid learning helped in terms of theory, practice was a different matter: not even the best digital simulations have helped train individuals for the rigours of in-person interaction in the workplace.
As pressing as these issues are, one major solution we intend to look into later on is how the public and private sectors can team up to address them and provide long-terms solutions to improve tourism education for a better global workforce.
