Hotel Employment in Kenya; Contingent Work or Professional Career?

While hospitality is a great industry, it presents ample opportunities as well as many challenges. The most successful worker must have positive attitude and energy in addition being naturally friendly and service-oriented. In Kenya, tourism is a major industry and a key driver towards the Vision 2030. It has made major contributions toward the country's Gross Domestic Product (GDP), over the past few years and has thus contributed towards the economic development of the country. Large number of international travelers come to this country and embarks on adventure safaris, which helps in generating revenue for the country. Tourism has also helped in providing employment to a large number of people in Kenya. The hotel industry has also flourished because of this reason. A large number of hotels are regularly coming up over here to provide accommodation to the tourists visiting here for a holiday. Tourism generates revenues of nearly $500million per year. The purpose of this study was therefore to evaluate and assess employment as well as career growth in this industry. The study adopted descriptive survey research design. Simple random sampling method was used to pick respondents for this study. Subjects for this study included 493 non-management employees working on permanent basis in the selected hotels. This study therefore involved a total of 133 permanently employed staff working in these star-rated hotels. Data from the respondents were collected using both structured and unstructured questionnaires. Descriptive statistical tools such as means, standard deviations ratios, percentiles and correlations were used to present the study findings. The results indicated that majority of workers in hotel jobs in Kenya (51%) had diploma certificate while 33% studied up to secondary level (Kenya Certificate of Secondary Education) without any post secondary qualification. The study further established that, only 10% were degrees holders and only 5% had post graduate qualifications. The results also indicated that training, experience, age, promotion and the hotel star-rate were key factors in determining the length of stay in hotel job or moving to other unrelated careers. The study therefore recommended that, the management to look into the employee welfare such as salary among others to motivate them. The study further recommended the improvement of working conditions in the hotels to boost employees’ morale. These were recognized as the ingredients to employee commitment to the organization and establishment of employee’s career growth in the industry.