LEARNING – disabled interns at Bluestone, one of the biggest tourism firms in Wales, are assisting with the labour deficit in the sector.
The World Travel and Tourism Council report predicted a 114,000-person average gross manpower shortage in the UK tourist industry in 2022.
The travel restrictions during the pandemic led to a fall in the number of migrant workers who were available to work in the sector.
Prior to the pandemic, foreign-born workers constituted 16 per cent of the tourism workforce in the United Kingdom (UK) and the European Union (EU).
The return of migrant workers to their home countries and the fall in immigration in 2020 have led many sectors to suffer from labour shortages.
Near Narberth in Pembrokeshire, the Bluestone National Park Resort employs over 800 people and welcomes almost 150,000 visitors annually.
However, according to its chief executive William McNamara, a “skills and people shortage” has made it harder to find and keep employees.
McNamara said: “It’s always been a challenge, especially down in west Wales. We are a peninsula county, simply the pool isn’t big enough.
“We work very hard and continuously to bring the right people in and more importantly when we’ve recruited them, we work very hard to keep them here.
“Historically a lot of businesses have employees Eastern Europeans, and they can’t do that anymore so there is going to be a shortage of people and you see it in the industry now and people are literally not opening businesses because they can’t get the staff.
“People’s views of tourism and hospitality is that it’s last resort, low pay, long hours and that’s very unfair. It is an educational thing and a perception thing. If we work on both of those then we can improve the situation.”
Morgan Scarfe, a learning-disabled intern, claims that his experience at Bluestone has increased his self-awareness and offered him professional possibilities for the future.
“At the start I never talked to anybody even when I was in college,” he said.
“It took me about two years to start and want to talk to people. I mostly talked to the staff as I was more comfortable around older people. I’ve come out of my shell.”
The resort took in five interns with learning disabilities in January 2023.
They obtain experience in several divisions in anticipation of being hired on full-time after the internship.
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