Studies of the UK, Germany and the US have found that patterns of career development and commitment to working in the tourism industry are strongly influenced by the national VET system. Germany, which has a more structured approach compared to the UK and US, encourages individuals to complete an apprenticeship prior to entering the tourism industry. Such an apprenticeship means that Germany’s education and training system is geared to produce a much higher proportion of qualified staff for the tourism industry. As a result employees in Germany were able to secure relatively highly skilled and autonomous positions at an earlier age than their counterparts in the UK and the US. There is also evidence which points to the greater productivity of German tourism employees over their British and American counterparts. One report concluded that Germany’s high productivity and service levels are due to the wider use of qualified manpower trained through the partnership arrangements for the dual system. This study notes that craft qualifications were held by 2.5 times as many employees in Germany compared to the UK. A conclusion to be drawn is that the dual system within which German employees for tourism are trained ‘embeds’ commitment to the sector to a much greater degree than elsewhere and this, combined with high levels of reward, contributes to a greater sense of professionalism and productivity. Finally, German employees were also more likely to advance more rapidly within the industry due to the training and education they receive. Derived from STRU (1998); Finegold et al. (2000).
