Rome hosted the World Travel & Tourism Council's 25th Global Summit a year ago, and one report from that week has stayed with us since. WTTC's research arm mapped where global tourism employment is headed through 2035, and the number it landed on for hospitality specifically is 8.6 million workers short, about 18 percent below what the sector will need to run at full strength.
That is a real gap, but the context around it matters just as much. The same report expects travel and tourism worldwide to add 91 million new jobs by 2035, with one in every three net new jobs on the planet coming from this one sector. Demand for workers is projected to outpace supply by more than 43 million people globally. The story underneath the shortfall is not a shrinking industry. It is one growing faster than employers can currently staff for.
Europe's Own Share of the Gap
WTTC broke its forecast down by region, and the European Union's own shortfall came out to 6.4 million workers, among the largest of the twenty economies the report studied. For a continent whose hotels, restaurants and resorts lean heavily on seasonal and skilled staff every year, that number is worth sitting with now rather than closer to 2035. It also lines up with something Italy's own hospitality sector already knows well: fewer young workers are choosing physically demanding, guest facing careers, even as demand for genuinely trained Italian hospitality talent keeps rising abroad.
What the Report Says Actually Works
To its credit, WTTC did not stop at the headline number. In its own survey of industry leaders, talent recruitment and retention came out as the top challenge facing the sector, named by just over half of respondents, ahead of cost pressures and technology adoption. Its recommendations read like a checklist a hotel group could start on this month: pay and benefits that actually compete, clearer paths from entry level roles into leadership, closer ties between hospitality schools and employers, and easing the path for international recruitment rather than treating it as a last resort.
That last recommendation is where we spend most of our time. ItalianExperience exists because employers abroad, mostly across the United States, have found that the fastest way to close a staffing gap with real skill behind it is to hire trained Italian chefs, servers and hotel professionals who already know the craft, and then walk both sides through the visa process so the hire actually arrives and stays. A workforce gap nine years out can feel abstract, until you are the general manager trying to fill a pastry chef role next spring. We would rather help build that pipeline now, while there is still room to do it carefully, than wait until the number gets harder to close.
Data referenced from the World Travel & Tourism Council's Future of the Travel & Tourism Workforce report, unveiled at its 25th Global Summit in Rome.
A gap you can see coming nine years out is just a hiring plan with a deadline, and the operators who start today get to hire from strength instead of catching up in 2035.