The Desert of Talent in Hospitality Industry : A Qualitative Analysis on High Staff Turnover in Chinese Hotels

Abstract: This paper through qualitative research and the author's collection of relevant articles and materials explains the high turnover rate of hotel staff in China. Employee turnover refers to the behaviour of employees voluntarily or involuntarily terminating their labour relationship with an organization. Although employee turnover is considered a common phenomenon in the hotel industry, the hotel industry has experienced unusually high turnover rates over the past years in China's hospitality industries. Turnover is directly linked to rising employee recruitment and training costs, low employee morale, job satisfaction, and customer perceptions of service quality. Therefore, it is of great significance to study this phenomenon for the future development of hotels. This study involved seven participants from different positions who had left the hotel industry but still worked in the hotel industry or permanently left the industry. The semi-structured interview was based on the existing literature on the factors of hotel employee turnover. The result shows that the weak employee benefits and development opportunities in Chinese hotels are the reasons for frequent employee turnover. Other problems were also found in the research, such as the frequent job-hopping of hotel employees for development opportunities.