Migrant labor in hospitality: The Cyprus experience

The hospitality industry depends to a great extent on migrant employees for its day-to-day operations. Cyprus’ accession to the European Union (EU) in 2004 saw an influx of migrant employees, mainly from ‘New Europe’, a development which posed and continues to pose, numerous organizational challenges. Adopting a qualitative methodology, the study set out to investigate migrants’ employment experiences in Cyprus, via the views of three different groups of employees; managers, local and migrant employees. Findings, can inform both industry stakeholders and academic scholars, while enhancing our collective knowledge regarding migrants’ contributions to the industry, ‘push’ and ‘pull’ factors of migrant employment, their intercultural relationships with the host population, and the impacts that migrant employment can have on the service delivery process.