New technologies and skills requirements in the hospitality sector in Andalusia (Spain) (?)

In this paper we have applied the Delphi Method to the study of the current situation and future perspectives concerning the impact of the technological change in the skill needs of the Andalusian tourism sector workers, taking as a point of reference the sub sector of the hospitality. An amount of 50 experts in the matter have been selected, consisting of owners of tourism establishments and/or enterprises, professors and researchers coming from the academic scope, representatives of entrepreneurs associations and trade unions as well as politicians responsible for the tourism area. All of the consulted experts develop their professional activity in Andalusia. With all of them exhaustive interviews have been supported in depth, on the base of a questionnaire which had been already used in other tourism sub sectors by Ortega, Marchante and Sánchez Ollero (2001a and 2001b). The obtained results emphasize the growing importance of the new technologies in the sector, although its impact show remarkable differences depending of the kind of enterprise and of the temporary considered spaces. So, the worry about the technological change is bigger in hotels than in restaurants, although in restaurants in which a more shortage of staff knowing the abilities related to the new technologies is foreseen. The explanation to this apparent contradiction can be in the formation effort that has been bigger in hotels than in restaurants, which leads them to a better situation in the future.