Career Competencies and Job Performance of Saudi Employees in Tourism Industry: Intelligent Career Model

Abstract

Tourism industry is one of the most growing sectors that contributes significantly to Gross World Product (GWP), employment opportunities, and local culture. Saudi Arabia has witnessed a growing number of hotel projects of new international chains and domestics hotels. Studies relevant to career competencies topics are relatively scarce among the first-line staff in Saudi’s hotels industry. This study seeks to examine the relationship between career competencies and job performance among frontline staffs at luxury, mid and upper mid-scale hotels in Riyadh and Makkah regions of Saudi Arabia. This study used online questionnaire method and was sent to 700 different hotels with a response rate of 76% (n=499). Partial least squares structural equation modeling (PLS-SEM) was used for data analysis. Results showed that reflective, communicative, and behavioral career competencies have a statistically significant positive influence on individual work performance with values of (B=0.3, p<0.01), (B=0.34, p<0.01), and (B=0.21, p<0.01) respectively. A number of practical implications along with the research limitations were discussed.