Essay Sample on Cross-Cultural Communication in Tourism: Challenges and Solutions

Introduction

The tourism industry is one sector that experiences great diversity, both in culture and communication. Understanding the relationship between varied cultures and communication and how it plays in intercultural places such as the tourism industry helps determine its effects in the particular industry. Businesses and their employees in the tourism industry must address the challenges associated with cross-cultural communication if they have to succeed because the tourism industry is known for great diversity when it comes to the companies at play and the workplace (Sharma, 2018). Previous studies have revealed significant disparity in the management differences and practices from individuals with varied cultural backgrounds. For such an industry, understanding the implications of cultural differences in communication is of vital importance, especially considering the high competition experienced in the industry.

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Industry players in the tourism sector, and most specifically, the employees and management team need to acknowledge better the relationship that exists between cultural differences and communication. With such understanding, it is evident that the workers could exhibit high sensitivity whenever dealing with individuals from varied cultures, which is the norm of the industry (Sharma, 2018). Business can best use the knowledge on intercultural differences in communication as leverage for success in the tourism industry through the adoption and conveyance of messages depending on situations and cultures involved for communication contexts. One most effective approach to such an aspect is through appropriate training of workers to recognize any communication mismatches attributed to cultural differences and establish proper ways of creating an understanding. Such an approach is essential in reducing the risk of cultural clash in communication, thus allowing for the leveraging on cultural diversity by businesses as a competitive advantage against the competitors (Sharma, 2018).

Due to the growing globalization and internationalization of the tourism sector, the impacts of cross-cultural communications and relations on the management of human resources should be considered. It is prudent for workers within the tourism industry to have besides the ordinary culturally independent knowledge including social, technical, strategic and conceptual competencies, cross-cultural competencies that are very important when various cultural groups converge. Therefore, this topic was selected to understand how cross-cultural communication influences the tourism industry and inform future industry training. Principally, the awareness concerning the connection between intercultural communication and tourism industry could improve the sensitivity of employees when communicating with people from different cultures (Sharma, 2018). Further, the information could assist employees, including hospitality managers, to adapt and appropriately convey information according to the cultural and situational context of communication. More importantly, understanding the impacts of cross-cultural communication on tourism industry could help eradicate the dangers of cultural clashes within the tourism industry thus enabling the companies to the performance of the sector take advantage of the importance of cultural diversity.

References

Sharma, B. K. (2018). Training workers for intercultural communication in tourism. Language and Intercultural Communication, 18(4), 408-423. doi:10.1080/14708477.2018.1478849