Cultural Diversity and Its Impact on the Australian Hospitality Sector

This essay provides a comprehensive analysis of the impact of cultural diversity within the Australian hospitality sector. It begins by defining cultural diversity and its significance in the workplace, particularly within the context of the hospitality industry. The essay then delves into both the positive and negative effects of cultural diversity. Positive impacts discussed include increased productivity, creativity, employee engagement, and improved company reputation. The negative impacts include communication barriers, dysfunctional adaptation, and potential for miscommunication. The essay also examines specific challenges, such as language barriers and differing professional etiquette. Furthermore, the essay explores how Australian hotels are adapting to cultural diversity, including the importance of a multicultural workforce and the challenges faced by managers. The essay concludes by suggesting strategies for effectively managing diversity, such as reassessing cultural diversity approaches, developing managerial skills, providing diversity management training programs, and promoting fairness and equal employment opportunities. The essay emphasizes the importance of recognizing the talents of all workers to ensure the success of hospitality organizations in Australia.

Effects of Cultural Diversity within
Hospitality Sector of Australia

Culture diversity is that quality of diverse or different cultural present at same place and
at one particular time which is opposite of monoculture or homogenization of cultures. This also
means that different people who belong to different cultural, ethnic origin, colour and religion
are respecting each other’s difference (Kalargyrou & Costen, 2017). In certain parts of world
cultural diversity is celebrated like festival to show their unity in diversity. Like in Australia
Harmony Day on 21st March each year is celebrated where people of different communities come
together to participate in local activities. There is one message given from Harmony Day that is
“Everyone Belongs”.
Cultural diversity at workplace is evident when company is hiring employees from
different backgrounds irrespective of their religion, race and culture. Considering this, it is
evident that hospitality sector of Australia employs employees from different parts of world that
leads to culturally diverse team (Manoharan et. al. 2019). Therefore, this essay will cover impact
of cultural diversity in hospitality sector of Australia and how industry is preparing for this
opportunity, adapting to this challenge or managing the particular issue in different manner.
It is evident that with the rapid transformation and integration of economies over past
decade, there is significant rise in culturally diverse workplace especially in developed countries
like Australia, UK, UAE, etc. Thus, the post-industrial world is presenting range of new
developments, challenges and opportunities for almost all industries. Cultural diversity is the
difference which is represented into organisation where people of variety of status, race, gender,
ethnicity, language, nationality, sexual orientation and religion are working together (Sharma,
2016). For companies, it is very much essential to support the diversity at workplace as part of
boosting productivity among employees and to strengthen coordination.
There are both negative and positive impacts of cultural diversity on hospitality industry
of Australia. Most important impacts are increase in productivity, creativity, employee
engagement, improved company reputation and improve cultural insights (Manoharan et. al.,
2013). If companies are understanding importance of cultural diversity within workplace then
they would be able to improve their overall profits. Due to cultural diversity into hospitality
sector there will be increased amount of creativity as people can come and learn from each other.
If workplace is full of heterogeneous group then creativity will be limited while if there is
homogeneous groups then there will be diverse solution to one problem (Manoharan et. al.
2013).

Also, with improved creativity and innovation there will be surely increased productivity
with brainstorming and diverse workforce. If there is increased productivity then company’s
reputation will also be boost up. There be will diversity engenders goodwill for community and
industry. Cultural diversity in different ways affecting workplace which means that there are also
certain negative impact like that of creation of barriers, dysfunctional adaptation and
miscommunication (Agrawal, 2012). As culturally diverse workers will allow different thoughts,
customs, tradition, norms, opinions, value, belief and value which limit communication. This
impact integration across multicultural team can also be difficult into face of prejudice and
negative cultural stereotypes. Outright prejudice or stereotyping is very serious concern to
cultural biasness as this creates problems and difficulties for workplace diversity. One more
serious challenge arises while there is misinterpretation of professional communication due to
different cultures and languages (Syed & Kramar, 2010). If there is diversity at workplace then
there must be best quality of translations for effective communication and marketing.
Further, language barrier is one of the most common barriers to cultural diversity which
can hamper daily working. In Australia where each of them are speaking in English then also
there will be issue with range of accents or difficulty in understanding speaker’s native language
and use of idioms. People from America are having different accents so is with people of UK or
India or South Africa which can create problems with understanding of cross cultural
communication. It can also be added that there is different understanding of professional
etiquette is also a challenge for cultural diversified workplace (Adib & Guerrier, 2003). Each
person is having different values, etiquettes, attitudes and behaviours which sometimes are not
properly understood by others. Like for instance Japanese colleague will not leave work before
their manager leaves it or Swedish employee will be used to with 6-hours working in a day only.
Like professionals working in hospitality sector of Australia use to do handshake before and after
meeting and it is considered rude to not shake someone’s hand when he or she offers handshake.
It can also be included that if anyone is introducing themselves with their first name only then
other person can call them with that only.
These things should be kept in mind while working in Australia so that there are no
barriers to cultural diversity amongst people. It can be included that most of the Australian hotels
depend on multicultural workforce so that they could be able to keep pace with their operations.
Those hotels that are culturally diverse in Australia are likely to be in more profits as compared

to those that are not. It was also included that hotels are very much efficient with their cost
cutting and updated technologies but managing staff is still the biggest challenge. As there are
more number of migrant who are coming rest part of world in Australia so for hospitality
industry they are best source of employment.
While it can be added that certain managers who frequently experience challenges with
English proficiency of staff who are coming diverse backgrounds. There is also another problem
which arises due to cultural diversity that is commitment and loyalty (Korjala, 2013). This means
that people who are coming from different cultural background do not feel loyal to whole
organisation but only to their original background. This is very demanding task for management
in way of resolving these limitations and have these small group remain faithful to whole
organisation. Therefore, these people or employees will always reject cultural diversity and
changing patterns. Due to this, they limit their new ideas, innovation, and creativity and decline
their progress. Lastly, one of the impacts of cultural diversity includes that this also complicates
decision-making process (Korjala, 2013).
As it is observed that for management, it is essential to include each group of people
while making any sort of decision. However, this can certain create problem for them to include
each group of people to involve in this process. There is principle of ethical decision making
which regulates that company should be asking opinions and ideas of each employee group
before making any new decision. The types of changes in values will affect thoughts and actions
which will likely to result into conflicts.
Within hotels, there is also a risk of operations, which means that there are different ways
of conducting operations in different countries or people belonging to different culture. Like into
generic skills of housekeeping staff there is difference in way in which they make bed, standards
of cleanliness and use of chemicals is also different. Thus, it can be concluded that there are both
benefits and challenges for hospitality industry when they are having cultural diversity into their
organisations.
Cultural diversity is becoming one of the major issues in hospitality industry of Australia
nowadays. However, there are great solutions which are available for making the hospitality
industry more successful with cultural diversity (Al-Jenaibi, 2011). This is important due to the
fact the cultural diversity is extremely essential for any hospitality organisation working in
Australia.

Firstly, it is required by companies that they are changing and reassessing their cultural
diversity approach and making it an essential part of corporate strategy. Under this proper
guidelines need to be given on how jobs and people need to be organised. For those hospitality
companies of Australia who are practicing complete cultural diversity need to pay strict attention
to 3 aspects. These include managerial skills and practice, organisational policies and value and
individual attitude and behaviour (Dastane & Eshegbe, 2015). It is very important to understand
managerial skills and practice for resolving the issue that can arise due to cultural difference. If
company is having diversified culture then its management team should also be smart to handle
all type of difficulties arising due to this. Relying only on one type of management skills or
practice is not enough as this require active management by coordination, direction and
supervision.
It can also be added by Elkhwesky, et. al. (2019) that prating of involving employees and
taking feedback from them supports in improving equality and need of firm. They need to know
the difference which each individual group is having based on their culture that too with the
intention of improving team spirit, conflict management, work performance and commitment of
employees towards work and organisation. Management and top level executive themselves
should try to be committed towards cultural diversity as in this situation it is essential for them to
come up like role model and leading by example. In one of the study conducted by Hsiao et. al.
(2017) it was concluded that for organisation finding out different between perception of
employees in low and high diversity organisation is essential. It was added that organisation
which are having higher diversity report more job satisfaction than those having low level
especially in hospitality industry.
As it can be indicated that hospitality industry is more team-oriented and nature of work
is also independent so workforce composition is influencing both individual and group
performance. So for hospitality industry it is essential that they are Adopting Employee
Relationship Management System (Moran et.al. 2014). For all employers and employees it is
required that they are behaving very much sensitive to cultural difference so they firstly need to
review their own approach. There are number of strategies which need to be adopted by hotels
for breaking cultural barriers like flexible communication, increasing awareness of cultural
diversity, expressing personal concerns and realising each other’s viewpoint. Main problem arise
with those having minority of their culture group in certain organisation as they are generally not

allowed to participate in strategic decision making. Thus this leads to situation of injustice to
them (Sridhar & Sandeep, 2014).
Therefore, improving communication with minorities, offering suitable work culture, and
trust will automatically enhance their productivity. This also results in self-motivation that leads
to high competency. Another option is to provide proper Diversity Management Training
Programs for effective management of diversity within organisation for long run (Moran et.al.
2014). With the increased globalisation in hospitality industry, there are many international
organisations which are coming to Australia. Not only are this most of the Australian hotel
groups doing their business in other parts of world. Therefore, for them it is very much essential
that they understand culture of that country and try to manage their work. Like if, any Australia
hotel chain is operating in Indian market should know Indian etiquettes and ethics of hospitality
and if they are operating in Japan, they should be familiar with Japanese etiquettes (Martin,
2014).
This is possible by giving training to employees in proper and efficient manner so that
they know how to handle and behave with people coming with different culture. Not only should
this cross-cultural training section be included into normal training programs to direct and help
into training program (Moran et.al. 2014). Educating them with multicultural programs will help
into diminishing stereotypes among them. For hospitality industry, it is very much important that
they are improving fairness and give equal employment opportunities to each employee.
From the essay, it can be finally concluded that cultural diversity is having both positive
and negative points of argument. Improved communication, productivity, creativity, employee
engagement and company’s reputation are some of the major benefits or positive side of cultural
diversity in hospitality industry of Australia. However, there are also negative impacts which
create problems and challenges for those who are considered to as minority in that diversity.
Therefore, employers should recognise talents of all workers equally and then develop
opportunities for them without any sort of discrimination. The HR department of hospitality
industry should try to create better platforms for employees and providing them diversity
management training as well.

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