Language skills in tourism: Why the Anglosphere needs to appreciate them
The importance of languages is universal.
However, in native English-speaking countries such as the United Kingdom, language education has been neglected.
This has implications for the inbound travel, tourism, and hospitality industries and their workers, according to Karen Thomas and Jim Butcher. Dr Thomas was the lead researcher for a study on the topic.
Drs Thomas and Butcher have co-authored this “Good Tourism” Insight at the invitation of Tourism’s Horizon, a “GT” Insight Partner.
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It shouldn’t really be necessary to make the case for languages.
As a global destination the United Kingdom (UK) welcomes visitors from across the world. Inbound tourism forecasts recently released by VisitBritain estimate 35.1 million visits and GBP 29.5 billion (~ USD 36.5 billion) spend for 2023.
As anyone who has visited a country without being able to speak the local language knows, communicating with tourists in their native language can make them feel more welcome, comfortable, respected, and confident.
Foreign language skills in tourism are therefore essential in providing great holidays; in the UK as in any country.
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It’s not all about the tourism experience either. From negotiating contracts, to developing partnerships worldwide, the ability to communicate effectively is vital.
Promoting greater language competence is increasingly necessary since the UK left the EU, prompting an end to the practice of importing multilingual hospitality workers from elsewhere in Europe.
Brexit has been, to say the least, a fraught affair. But it should prompt the UK to take seriously the prospects of UK citizens in the labour market and in society.
The government is currently addressing skill shortages in part through promoting apprenticeships, which is positive. But in tourism and hospitality, why not aim high and promote languages as a part of addressing the skill shortages that exist there?
Who is learning languages? Who is not teaching them?
The present reality is pretty dismal.
Our 2018 Canterbury Christ Church University study, which was commissioned by UKinbound, found that the number of pupils taking languages at A‑level had declined by a third between 1996 and 2016, with only 8,500 students taking French, 7,500 taking Spanish, and just 3,400 taking German.
Equally discouraging, the report found that between 2000 and 2015, the number of language degrees offered by UK universities also decreased by a third, reflecting reduced demand. And only 16 out of 43 modern language degree programmes in the UK mentioned a tourism career as a reason to learn a language.
Those involved in tourism education can hardly complain. Of the 78 institutions offering undergraduate tourism courses, only 25 offer languages as part of the curriculum. And just 6% of the 87 postgraduate programmes offer a language, and only as an option.
A greater synergy between language departments and the business schools in which most tourism and hospitality students are located would be a good idea. But bureaucratic autarchy and patronising ‘student as consumer’ narratives provide a barrier to progress in UK higher education.
The problem can’t be resolved through small changes or tweaks. The lack of language competence is a deeply rooted cultural problem here in the UK, and elsewhere too.
Any meaningful policy to address this would involve a renaissance of provision in schools. It would also require a willingness of educators to appeal to the ambitions and passions of young undergraduates.
To reinvigorate languages, educationalist and linguist Shirley Lawes says that we should be bold. She argues that all too often we reduce foreign language study to a functional skill that teaches the sort of thing you find in a ‘get by’ phrase book.
The beauty of the language, and its role as a passport into other cultures, all too often plays second fiddle to an instrumental view based on what is deemed to be relevant.
Arguably ‘relevance’ has replaced the love of culture in our education system. And it is hardly inspiring to young people.
The case for language skills in tourism
There is much to be gained by speaking the local language when on holiday, whether you want to grasp the local history or make friends.
This is even more true when we think about the tourism workforce. Understanding and communicating with customers is important.
There is, of course, the commonplace view that ‘everyone speaks English’ and that there is no need to learn another language. This instrumental approach to language is unavailable to non-native English speakers!
More importantly, it misses the point about the role of language in cultural enrichment, both in formal ways (reading literature in other languages) and informal ones too (connecting with new friends who don’t happen to be fluent in English).
Language does not just communicate. It is not purely instrumental, or a means to an end. When we speak and discuss, we, as a sociologist might put it, make meaning.
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Our ideas and interests don’t come pre-formed. We develop them in and through our connections with the world, and travel can play an important role in this.
Tourism and hospitality are quite unlike other industries in that the benefits of widening one’s connections — cultural, personal, and economic — is at the centre.
It has long been recognised that employees in tourism and hospitality act as ‘culture brokers’, mediating between one culture (usually their own) and visitors’ cultures.
This is not only the role of the tour guide, but also of front-of-house and waiting staff, travel agents, drivers, and others.
Of course travel, tourism, and hospitality is an industry; the normal commercial imperatives of profit and loss apply. But it has its roots in the forging of personal connections and the widening of horizons.
Languages enable travel, tourism, and hospitality professionals to more effectively deliver on that potential, not only for paying customers but also for themselves.
Why you should acquire language skills in tourism
In addition to the potential for richer personal connections and wider horizons, there are common-sense career-focused reasons why language skills in tourism and hospitality are important to individuals.
Language skills enhance one’s job prospects, opening up more diverse opportunities in more places. They effectively ‘upskill’ and differentiate an individual tourism or hospitality worker in a workforce that is often inappropriately labelled as ‘unskilled’.
Linguists who are able to use their skills to benefit their customers may be able, over time, to demand higher wages and follow more enriching career paths.
In the aftermath of COVID-19, as we step outside our front doors and look beyond our shores to enjoy the conviviality and connections we missed during the pandemic — as tourists and hospitable people alike seek wider horizons — now would be a good time to reverse our drift away from promoting and encouraging language skills in tourism.
Agree? Disagree? What do you think? Share a short anecdote or comment below. Or write a “GT” Insight of your own. The “Good Tourism” Blog welcomes diversity of opinion about travel & tourism because travel & tourism is everyone’s business.
The full report by Dr Karen Thomas and her team of researchers: Breaking the Language Barrier: Equipping our Tourism Workforce for the UK’s Future (UKinbound / Canterbury Christ Church University).
This “Good Tourism” Insight is the third initiated by Tourism’s Horizon, a “GT” Insight Partner. Tourism’s Horizon is “a loose group of academics, writers, and tourists who value mass tourism’s cultural and economic contributions to our society, and seek to explore optimistic and expansive futures for the industry”.
Featured image (top of post): Language skills in tourism: Why the Anglosphere needs to appreciate them. Understand? Image by Towfiqu barbhuiya (CC0) via Unsplash.
About the authors
Karen Thomas is a lecturer and Director of the Tourism and Events Hub at Canterbury Christ Church University, England. Dr Thomas works within the Christ Church Business School to build opportunities to connect with industry and “create collaborative knowledge exchange that meets the needs of the visitor economy”.
Jim Butcher is a lecturer and writer who has written a number of books on the sociology and politics of tourism. Dr Butcher blogs at Politics of Tourism, tweets at @jimbutcher2, and initiated Tourism’s Horizon: Travel for the Millions on Substack.
