Hotels and restaurants must improve pay and conditions if they are to attract suitable young people, according to the director of the tourism industry training body, CERT. "The tourism industry, particularly the hotel, restaurant and catering sector, must recognise that the day when there was a plentiful supply of labour is gone," Mr Raymund O'Connor writes in the CERT annual review.
"It is now competing with the computer company up the road and the call-centre down the road. It is of paramount importance that the industry meets this competition in areas such as wages and conditions. If this challenge is not met, then its own product will suffer as standards and quality deteriorate - and business will be lost."
He said at present "there are still skills' shortages, most notably in the restaurant service area".
"While the tourism industry is not the only one affected by these shortages at present, recruitment is a problem which is likely to become even more acute given the growth in tourism and the competition for personnel."
He welcomed a £20 million investment promised to the tourism industry by the Minister for Education, Mr al Martin, describing it as "a huge boost to the industry".
Almost everybody who completed CERT training last year got work, the review shows. In all, 98 per cent of graduates and 86 per cent of unemployed adults given second-chance training found jobs.
The tourism industry employs 188,000 people, an increase of 20 per cent in five years.