Communication skills in generation Z as future tourism employees

ABSTRACT Generation Z has recently entered the tourism labour market, where communication skills have been recognised as one of the most important soft skills. This paper investigates the communication skills of Generation Z as future tourism employees. Primary research was conducted using a questionnaire investigate five communication skill dimensions: written, oral, listening, digital, and non-verbal communication skills influencing the intention to improve these communication skills. The research methodology included Importance-Performance Map Analysis (IPMA) based on the PLS method. Findings indicate that nonverbal communication skills belong to the high importance-high performance group, while listening and digital communication skills belong to the low importance-high performance group. Written and oral communication skills belong to the low importance-low performance group. The paper’s contribution is an up to date conceptualisation of Generation Z’s communication skills and an examination of the most prominent communication skills among the Generation Z respondents.