From research papers to policy briefs and industry resources, find all our project outputs related to digitalisation, worker wellbeing and social dialogue in tourism and hospitality here.
Scientific Publications
Authors
Joseph Mellors and the FUTOURWORK Consortium
Abstract
This article argues for a fundamental overhaul of social dialogue in the tourism sector to address the realities of the 21st-century workplace. Given the growing importance of platform-based work and algorithmic control, traditional collective bargaining structures are increasingly reaching their limits and systematically exclude precarious workers in particular. Building on interdisciplinary and comparative perspectives, the text calls for more inclusive and adaptable models of social dialogue that incorporate digital control mechanisms, intersectional inequalities and fragmented forms of employment. Tourism research is positioned as central to this transformation and is called upon to play an active role in shaping new forms of co-determination, representation and regulation.
Authors
Joseph Mellors and Tânia Gaspar
Highlights
- Centres authenticity as a vital but overlooked part of worker well-being.
- Shows how “being real” becomes emotional labour in hospitality workplaces.
- Calls for research on how authenticity is lived, shaped, and constrained at work.
Authors
Fiona Bakas, Tara Duncan, Stanislav Ivanov, Joseph Mellors, and the FUTOURWORK Consortium
Abstract
The rapid platformisation of tourism and hospitality (T&H) is reshaping work, yet for many workers this digital transformation deepens existing vulnerabilities rather than dismantling them. Platforms now colonise recruitment, task allocation, and algorithmic management in a sector already defined by precarity and a workforce disproportionately composed of young people, women, and migrants. While the European Institute for Gender Equality warns that platforms can both advance gender equality and entrench sexism, scholarship has yet to theorise how these contradictions unfold in T&H. We employ a critical review methodology to construct an original conceptual framework integrating platformisation, gender, and wellbeing as mutually constitutive dimensions of T&H labour. The framework recasts digital transformation not as neutral progress but as a contested site of power, where value co-creation for platforms, firms and customers may coincide with value co-destruction for workers. It offers scholars a new lens for theorising tourism work futures, and policymakers a diagnostic tool for ensuring platformisation supports decent work, wellbeing and equity.
Policy Briefs
Social Dialogue for Tourism and Hospitality Worker Wellbeing in the Digital Era
Our first policy brief examines how digitalisation, worker wellbeing, social dialogue and legal frameworks intersect to shape working conditions in tourism and hospitality. It sets out how policy can build on the Platform Work Directive and AI Act to deliver fairer, more inclusive work. Essential reading for policymakers, social partners and anyone steering the future of work in the sector.
READ THE BRIEF
