The Northern Ireland hotel sector is close to recovering to pre-pandemic levels but is still struggling to find staff, industry body the Northern Ireland Hotels Federation (NIHF) said.
It called for support from government to upskill potential workers and a targeted loosening of immigration regulations to allow more staff from overseas come to Northern Ireland to work in the sector.
NIHF said there are around 1,000 positions vacant in the sector in Northern Ireland amongst the 146 hotels trading in the province.
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Chief Executive of NIHF said the sector has huge potential if the labour bottleneck is overcome.
“With one in ten roles currently vacant within the hotel sector, the current performance is a remarkable bounce back and indicative of the contribution the industry can make,” she said. “Further growth is possible with access to a wider labour market and support for the sector in terms of skills and education.”
Ms Gault was speaking following the release of the latest statistics on the local industry from benchmarking company STR.
It showed that occupancy stood at 66.4% for the first half of 2022, just four percent behind the same period in 2019, the last comparable period before the Covid-19 pandemic when most hotels were forced to close.
NIHF said the sector got off to a slow start to the year but business has picked up every month since, with June’s 81.1% occupancy rate up on that reported in June 2019, although the room rate of £107.41 was slightly down.
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While Northern Ireland’s hotels are enjoying a revival, addressing the staffing difficulties is key to further recovery, Ms Gault said.
“We know that the hotel, tourism and wider hospitality sector is not alone in its plight to attract more staff,” she said. “There are more vacancies than job-ready candidates which creates competition between business segments.
“Hotels have secure, flexible roles which offer excellent long term career paths, with short term contracts, seasonal roles and part-time opportunities for those on a different career trajectory. The local labour market will not be able to fill all the roles on offer, which means the recruitment pool needs to be widened.
“The NIHF believes that collaboration is a key part of the solution and has been working closely with HATS (Hospitality and Tourism Skills) collaborative network, Invest NI, Tourism NI and other stakeholders on workstreams and initiatives around attracting, engaging and retaining staff.
“The Federation would like to see changes to immigration policy and a recognition of the role the industry can play in creating long term, secure and sustainable roles which support economic growth. The sector needs to be part of the government’s ambition for the 10x Economy with an appropriate skills and education framework to support it. NIHF has commissioned a study by Ulster University Economic Policy Centre to review the issue, highlight the challenge and explore solutions.”