HRD strategies for tourism development

World over employment in tourism and hospitality has vastly accounted for over 225 million jobs in 2012 which is expected to be over 275 million jobs in 2019.The human resource structure in tourism industry mainly consists of two kinds of service jobs: large number of low-skilled-low-paid jobs and a smaller number of high-skilled-high-income jobs, with few jobs being in the middle of these two extremes. Thus, tourism being a high growth industry and a major creator of value added offers great employment opportunities in future. However, the industry is vulnerable to a variety of economic, ecological, geopolitical, and meteorological factors, apart from the challenges of maintaining high permanent staffing levels. Therefore, the Human Resource Development (HRD) strategies play an important role in the development and retention of talented employees in tourism sector. Against this background the present paper explores the various strategies that can be adopted to develop, retain, and empower human capital for equitable Tourism Development.