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608 turnover
Further reading
State Institute of Statistics, Tourism Statistics,
Government of Turkey, web page, http://
www.die.gov.tr. �Contains up-to-date statistical
information including charts and graphs.)
turnover
TURGUT VAR, USA
The tourism industry now finds itself critically short
of employees. One reason could be related to the
baby boomers and their shift in the society.
Another factor could be that many thought this
would be `a temporary situation'. Regardless how
this problem is viewed, this workforce shortage is
changing the face of the industry. According to the
National Restaurant Association, for instance,
in 1995 this sector alone needed another
800,000 employees to fill the jobs already created.
While the hospitality industry is not the only
one interested in stemming the turnover tide, the
situation is not nearly so grim elsewhere. For
instance, in the electronics industry �well- known
for its high turnover) the rate of turnover is only
about 27 per cent. Even in nursing, the rate is only
about 40 per cent per year. The average for
turnover in all industries in the United States is
about 12 per cent annually, down from 17 per cent
annually in 1995. Turnover in hospitality averages
somewhere between 50±400 per cent employees
and 25±200 per cent for managers annually. But it
must also be recognised that a large percentage of
jobs in tourism are seasonal in nature, an
important factor that partly explains the situation.
Turnover costs, on average, are from $3,000±
$10,000 per hourly employee. According to the
National Restaurant Association, turnover costs for
this sector averages about $5,000 per employee.
Turnover costs for managers can average $50,000
or more. Typically, many companies associate the
cost of losing one trained manager with approximately
one year's annual salary, because that is how
long it takes for a new manager to become fully
productive.
Quality of supervision has been cited by both
managers and employees as the number one cause
of turnover in this field. In other words, more
employees leave their employer because they are
unhappy with the quality of supervision they
receive than for any other reason. Ineffective
communications is the second most frequently
cited cause. Other major causes include poor
communications between co-workers, poor training
programmes and lack of career ladders.
typology, tourist
ROBERT H. WOODS, USA
Tourist typologies reflect the diversity of individual
motivations, styles, interests and values, and the
subsequent differences often correlate with specific
disciplinary research interests. The historical literature
�Towner 1996) ascribes tourism primarily
to wealth, or special status as in pilgrimage or
war. As the scientification of tourism progressed,
subsequent to the Second World War, typologies
have increased in number and specificity. Plog
�1964) identified a bell-shaped curve linking tourist
motivation with destination, and described
three travel personality types �see allocentric).
Typologies based on age and economy dominated
during the 1970s, led by Cohen �1972) whose
initial typology established two non-institutionalised
roles as drifter and explorer, and two institutionalised
types, organised mass tourist and individual
mass tourist. Smith �1977) described the demographic
aspects of tourism, in seven levels as
numbers increased from explorers to mass and
charter tourists, and their heightened impacts upon
the host culture and local perceptions of tourism.
Further, she defined five destination interests and
motivations: ethnic, cultural, historical, environmental
and recreational. This decade was also
marked by the initial polemic between advocates of
tourism as a phenomenon of pleasure-seeking
tourists and those who search for authenticity
�MacCannell 1973). Cohen �1979) summarised this
diversity as five modes of touristic experience:
recreational, diversionary, experiential, experimental
and existential.
The decade of the 1980s extended typologies to
include historic types such as the Grand Tour,
north±south tourism, and long-term youth and
budget travel, some of which is self-testing �Riley