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Skills
This is a Destination North East England legacy project.
This content was produced as part of the Destination Development Partnership Pilot.
Addressing the skills gap
Tourism is the fourth largest sector in the North East and is England’s third largest employer. It is worth £5.4bn to our regional economy and supports more than 58,000 jobs.
14,000 more people were employed in the sector between 2021 and 2022, up 32% but still down 7% on pre-pandemic levels. Despite the acceleration of tourism recovery, figures show that the sector still employs 5,000 fewer people than in 2019. Addressing this skills gap is one of the biggest challenges facing our regions visitor economy.
Building a more resilient tourism industry
There is a need to build a more resilient tourism industry and, as the first-ever Destination Development Partnership pilot, Destination North East England had ambitions to double the size of the visitor economy over the following 10 years, with the potential to create and support an additional 25,000 jobs.
Destination North East England supported the sector to build back better, helping to create a more productive and resilient tourism industry and workforce. This meant an industry employing more UK nationals in year-round, quality jobs, supported by the government’s skills agenda.
Addressing the skills gap and developing a pipeline of future talent was critical to accelerating the region’s growth potential.
So, what was done about it?
To address this head on Destination North East England commissioned a comprehensive survey to provide the intelligence to better understand the complex skills issues and emerging workforce challenges. This went on to inform interventions and initiatives to address the challenges the sector is facing, such as recruitment and retention issues being a recurring concern.
Destination North East England then went on to launch the "Destined for more" skills & careers hub, a major piece of work designed to inspire people into rewarding, long-term careers in the visitor economy and support businesses across the region to attract and retain great talent.
Visit the Destined for more skills and career hub
Useful Information
Did you know?
- In 2022, there were almost 26,000 unique job postings in 2022 in hospitality in the North East, with 30% of those in Newcastle.
- Tourism is one of England’s largest and most valuable industries and is one of the main drivers of economic recovery.
- Only 37% of visitor economy businesses across the UK believe the training and development opportunities on offer meet the skills needs of employees (People 1st International).
