Emotional Labour in the Hospitality Industry - Eamon Cassidy

Emotional labour, defined in the early eighties by Airlie Hochschild as 'the management of feeling to create a publicly observable facial and bodily display' (1983, p.7), has become a topic that has generated much interest over the past couple of decades, not least because of the vast increase in service workers worldwide in recent times. Tourism generated over 4bn. in Ireland alone in 2007 (Failte Ireland, 2008) and the hospitality industry now employees around 250, 000 workers meaning the number of workers performing emotional labour has substantially increased since Hochschild's early work. This dissertation explores the implications of emotional labour for hotel workers by researching the performance of, the reactions to and the consequences of emotional labour for these workers. A number of the findings in the dissertation strongly connected to some of the existing literature in relation to surface and deep acting, employee coping strategies and the consequences of emotional labour for employees. From the results of the research, conclusions were drawn up and a number of recommendations were issued."