ABSTRACT

This study explores tourism and hospitality workers’ unemployment experiences and their coping efforts during a major crisis in the industry. Turkey faced a series of terrorist attacks and political conflicts in 2015 and 2016 that resulted in a severe decline in international tourist arrivals and caused a large number of employee redundancies. This qualitative study was conducted with workers who lost their jobs involuntarily due to the crisis. Thematic analysis of interviews revealed the individual efforts to cope with the economic, social and psychological consequences of the unemployment. The further discussion of findings with contextual factors showed that the crisis in the industry directed people to move into another sector. They have planned to leave the country because of the unstable political environment and, in the absence of meaningful unemployment benefits, they applied for undocumented casual works and relied heavily on their families’ support. These study findings contribute to the literature on coping with job loss by providing evidence from a specific context, and to crisis literature in tourism by concentrating on employees who lost their jobs as ‘victims’ of crises in the industry.

摘要

本研究探讨了旅游业和酒店业工人在行业重大危机期间的失业经历及其应对措施。土耳其在 2015 年和 2016 年面临一系列恐怖袭击和政治冲突，导致国际游客人数严重下降，并造成大量员工裁员。这项定性研究是针对因危机而非自愿失业的工人进行的。访谈的专题分析揭示了个人应对失业造成的经济、社会和心理后果的努力。对背景因素的调查结果的进一步讨论表明，该行业的危机促使人们转向另一个行业。由于不稳定的政治环境，他们计划离开该国，并且，在没有有意义的失业救济金的情况下，他们申请无证的临时工作并严重依赖家人的支持。这些研究结果通过提供来自特定背景的证据为应对失业的文献做出了贡献，并通过将失去工作的员工作为行业危机的“受害者”来关注旅游业的危机文献。