This insight summarises As tourism races to adopt AI, the industry must hear workers' voices, by Stroma Cole, Professor of Tourism and Human Rights at the University of Westminster, published on PhocusWire on 28 September 2026.
The question behind World Tourism Day. This year's theme, "Digital Agenda and AI to Redesign Tourism," focuses on customer experience, efficiency and operations. Cole asks whether the workers using these tools have any say in how they change their jobs. Her evidence comes from Futourwork, an EU-funded project on worker voice and well-being during digital transformation.
Work run by algorithms. Tourism work is increasingly assigned, monitored and judged by software: timing housekeepers on every task, pushing tour guides down platform rankings for cancellations and no-shows, and scheduling shifts without the local knowledge staff have about which events fill the bar. Interviewees said they have little understanding of, or control over, these systems. One walking tour guide in Sweden, on a platform for four years, had never been asked about his experience: "you don't really know who you're talking to."
The rise of technostress. Rating systems, QR-code ordering and tools that demand constant availability are raising anxiety. A 2026 study of hotel workers links digital work management tools to emotional exhaustion and reduced performance. The impact falls hardest on women, migrants and young people, who already carry the most insecurity. "The more burnt out and precarious the workforce, the less resilient the industry it depends on."
Practical takeaways:
- Bring workers into design and deployment of AI tools, not only training on them.
- Use social dialogue between employers, workers and their representatives to shape rollouts in individual workplaces and across the sector.
- Treat regulation as a floor. The EU Platform Work Directive and AI Act add safeguards, but individual employers can start the conversation now.
Why this matters for hotels. Cole's answer is not less innovation. Staff who use these tools every day best understand their flaws, and involving them protects their judgment, autonomy and dignity while building more resilient workplaces.