The hospitality industry in Southwest Florida is trying to fight staffing shortages to provide services to tourists. Hotels offer huge bonuses to new hires.
There are, for instance, over 300 openings at hotels and over 1,600 in other hospitality businesses in Fort Myers. Surveys show that over 70% of Americans are planning to go on vacation this summer, which means hotels should expect a high workload. Industry representatives are trying to come up with creative ways of keeping the existing employees and attracting new hires, such as sign-on bonuses, fellowships, and flexible hours.
Hotels apply innovative technologies to avoid developing a shift schedule two weeks in advance and satisfy the staffing needs in real time, offering flexible work hours. Some places started paying employees daily instead of monthly.
Other businesses are cutting down the amount of services provided, e.g. doing room housekeeping once in several days, not daily.
According to a recent survey, 97% of hoteliers are facing staff shortages, 50% of them severe. The Florida hospitality industry is therefore planning to launch an ad campaign to attract employees with benefits like higher wages and discounts on travel.
These circumstances may increase the demand for short-term home rentals among tourists who could prefer this option to the deteriorated hotel service.