Employee learning in tourism experiences during Covid-19: A communities of practice perspective

Abstract

The global Covid-19 pandemic means that most tourism organizations face a heightened need to offer a range of innovative tourism experiences in order to survive. The successful delivery of these experiences largely depends on tourism employees, yet limited research currently exists on how these employees engage in learning new tourism practices, particularly in times of radical change. Utilizing an exploratory qualitative case study of Hamlet Live, an immersive tourism experience in Denmark, this article seeks to shed light on how tourism employees engage in learning during Covid-19. To explore this issue in depth, Communities of Practice, a practice-based approach to understanding learning, has been adopted as the key theoretical framework. Through participant observation and qualitative interviews, this study reveals the challenge of using ICT for tourism employee learning and how experienced employees can help offset disruption through peripheral learning. It also exposes the weakness of foreign employees in foundational competence such as native language fluency during a swift change from international to domestic tourists, and the impacts on their engagement in learning. The paper thus also makes a practical contribution in supporting tourism managers in better managing human resources and facilitating employee learning in times of drastic change.