Entire travel industry career path in one workplace – developing the skills of employees will ensure the availability of workforce also in the future

Press release | Wed Mar 27 13:01:00 2024

Travel company Lapland Hotels & Safaris is increasingly supporting the creation of a unique career and the professional growth of its employees. Diverse internal training also ensures the general availability of workforce and the fact that there will be employees in this sector in the future. In the travel industry, different careers that are shaped by one's own life situation are becoming increasingly common.

The availability of workforce is a growing challenge for every industry in the future, and employers need to consider options for finding and retaining skilled professionals in their field. Travel company Lapland Hotels & Safaris has actively developed various training paths and offers career options for a wide range of life situations. Within one workplace, you can progress not only vertically from the level of employee to supervisory positions, but also horizontally from one job to another between the three different sectors of the travel company or, for example, to expert tasks as part of chain operations.

As a new training concept, the company will launch management path coaching that lasts up to a year and a half, and which will provide the necessary skills for supervisory positions or the reinforcement of existing skills.

– “From the management path, you can, for example, move on to work as a shift manager, department head or production supervisor. The training is truly comprehensive and includes both own and partner-produced materials ranging from psychology to coaching management. The development of one's own competence rewards and motivates employees. At the same time, we will be able to train more professionals in-house, and thus we will also anticipate possible future labour challenges,” says Taru Tahvanainen, HR Manager at Lapland Hotels & Safaris.

According to a survey commissioned by Lapland Hotels & Safaris last autumn, Lapland Hotels is the most considered workplace among the hotel chains in Finland. The survey was responded to by more than 300 Finns who work or could think about working in the hotel and restaurant industry or other travel industry-related jobs.

“The upturn in the travel industry has been visible recently; last autumn, for example, we were able to fill almost all of our vacancies. One of the most important lessons learned in the field is service competence. It creates an excellent foundation for any job and provides the tools for all working life skills. Genuine encounters at the customer interface and in work communities go hand in hand,” says Tahvanainen.

Unique careers are becoming more common – combining two jobs is becoming increasingly popular

Depending on the season, Lapland Hotels & Safaris employs around 700–1,950 travel industry professionals. The travel company has dozens of different tasks, ranging from slope worker and husky dog handler to hotel receptionist or kitchen manager. Combining two jobs is also easy: more and more people nowadays do seasonal work in Lapland during the winter and work in city hotels during the summer. An estimated 10% of the employees will move from the winter season in Lapland to city hotels in the summer.

Approximately half of those working in the company's expert tasks and as shift managers and department heads have followed career paths, that is, by way the company's internal routes. Up to 60% of regional managers are internally trained for the task.

– “People really want to develop their own expertise and ensure for themselves the most diverse career possible in the future as well. The travel industry can provide a tremendous amount of learning for the rest of working life: it teaches problem-solving skills, adaptability, pressure resilience, social skills, meeting people, and different languages and cultures.”

– “I strongly believe in continuous learning, which responds to the need to develop and renew competence at different stages of life and career. Continuous learning can be perfectly implemented in the workplace by, for example, using workplace training programmes in cooperation with educational institutions, as well as various modules offered by educational institutions even up to a degree,” Tahvanainen sums up.

The willingness to recommend, NPS, of Lapland Hotels & Safaris’ employees has been rising strongly in recent years – according to a recent measurement in March, the NPS has risen by just under 10% compared to last year. Evaluations of supervisor work and management have also improved compared to the previous year.

Photo copyrights: Lapland Hotels & Safaris

For further information and interview requests, please contact: Taru Tahvanainen, HR Manager, Lapland Hotels & Safaris
+358 400 690 543

Travel enterprise Lapland Hotels & Safaris offers northern experiences for all the senses. It consists of Finland’s largest private hotel chain, Lapland Hotels, the largest experience service company in the Nordic countries, Lapland Safaris Group Oy and Lapland Ski Resorts.The group has approximately 1,950 employees in total.

Lapland Hotels  has 20 hotels, more than 2,400 rooms and apartments as well as over 10,000 restaurant seats around Finland: In Ylläs, Levi, Saariselkä, Rovaniemi, Olos, Luosto, Kilpisjärvi, Pallas and Hetta, as well as Helsinki, Tampere, Oulu, Kuopio and Haikko Manor in Porvoo.

Lapland Safaris offers unique outdoor activities at five destinations in Lapland: Rovaniemi, Ylläs, Saariselkä, Levi and Luosto.

Lapland Ski Resorts comprises five ski centres located in Ylläs, Luosto, Olos, Pallas and Rovaniemi. www.laplandhotels.com/en/, www.laplandsafaris.com/en/