Mapping the Evolution of Skills in Tourism: The Way Forward

This article comprehensively codifies the main skills required in the tourism sector over time, identifies emerging skill trends and presents the future challenges that tourism businesses may face. A bibliometric analysis was applied, which methodologically allows the mapping and interpretation of existing scientific knowledge and its evolution, providing the possibility of predicting future trends in specific research areas (in this case, human resources skills). Specific skills were identified, each of which is either of high importance (i.e. employability, academic and vocational tourism skills, tourist service excellence management skills and tourism and hospitality management skills), emerging (i.e. intercultural respect skills and satisfaction facilitation skills), or marginal (i.e. soft and hard digital literacy skills) in the context of the ever-evolving tourism sector. From a scientific perspective, this article offers new research opportunities, guiding scholars on the one hand in identifying future research questions and on the other hand in recognising potential obstacles in investigating the skills of human resources (HR) in tourism. On a practical level, it identifies critical skill areas that HR in tourism needs to develop, facilitating the management of tourism businesses and educational institutions in formulating effective education-training programs.