The hospitality and inbound tourism sectors are to work together on a national campaign for the first time to solve their jobs crises.
The campaign Hospitality Rising is now fundraising to raise up to £5 million having won official support from the Hospitality & Tourism Sector Skills Board (HTSB) to become the face of the industry’s biggest-ever recruitment drive.
Hospitality Rising, brainchild of senior marketer Mark McCulloch (pictured), has gained the backing of hospitality businesses, and UKHospitality, whose latest figures show there are 400,000 vacancies sector-wide.
Businesses including Hilton, The Pig Hotel & Limewood Group, Welcome Break and Pret A Manger have lent their support to the campaign, which has now started a concerted industrywide fundraising effort.
Hospitality Rising has already secured north of £350,000 in pre-launch seed funding and has now begun efforts to raise up to £5m to launch the nationwide campaign.
Employers industrywide are being encouraged to invest in the campaign by pledging £10 per employee.
McCulloch, who becomes campaign director reporting into the HTSB, which feeds into the joint government-industry initiative the Hospitality Sector Council, said: “To be approved as the industry’s official campaign and response to the recruitment crisis is amazing.
“It means we can really accelerate what we are doing with Hospitality Rising – we can now go stratospheric.
“We see this approval as a call to action for industry colleagues to come together and get behind the campaign, not just emotionally but, importantly, financially too, as we seek to build a campaign war-chest. This will allow us to drive our message out to the UK public, tell all our fabulous stories and make hospitality a positive career choice for the very many, not the few.”
UKHospitality chief executive Kate Nicholls said: “The campaign cannot come soon enough. Our latest research shows the issues of recruitment and skills are absolutely mission critical to the hospitality and tourism sectors.
“Many of our members are struggling with a significant level of vacancies; this campaign will enable hospitality to stage a vital intervention, and turn on a generation to the rich and varied roles and career pathways that our vibrant industry offers.”
UKHospitality figures show that as well as 400,000 vacancies across the hospitality sector there are a further 100,000 staff absences, meaning day-to-day the industry is missing half a million workers; or more than 20% of the workforce.