Soft Skills vs. Hard Skills in Tourism

Abstract

This chapter presents a qualitative study, resulting from a systematic literature review using a text analysis technique through the NVivo software, version 10.0. This technique involves grouping words that reveal semantic similarity to each other and results indicate that considerations around soft and hard skills in tourism have been different over time. In short, it might be said that it is hard skills that lead people to job interviews, but it is soft skills that allow them to be recruited for employment. Hence, it is the combination of the two skill types that enables people to have a job in the tourism industry, manage a career, and contribute to the differentiation of tourism companies in the tourism global marketplace that tends to be increasingly competitive.