This page provides information and data on the Hospitality sector and its related occupations. It focuses partially on occupations and training in hospitality and hospitality management qualifications.
The Australian and New Zealand Standard Industrial Classification (ANZSIC) categorises the Hospitality sector as encompassing businesses that provide accommodation, food and beverages such as cafes, restaurants and takeaway food services; pubs, taverns and bars; hotels, motels and other accommodation and hospitality clubs.
Key Hospitality occupations include:
This sector has been growing steadily with growth attributed to factors such as a growing ‘foodie’ culture, the popularity among many individuals to owning a hospitality business, population growth and an increase in consumer demand.
Nationally recognised training for Hospitality is delivered under the SIT - Tourism, Travel and Hospitality Training Package
For more information on Cookery, Events and Tourism please visit the respective pages.
Information sourced from the most recently available Skills Forecast, the Tourism, Travel and Hospitality IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast.
All data sources are available at the end of the page.
The Tourism, Travel and Hospitality IRC was not required to submit an annual update to their 2019 Skills Forecast during 2020. As such, the version published in 2019 remains the most recently published Skills Forecast for this industry.
Tourism, Travel and Hospitality Industry Reference Committee
Please note: any employment projections outlined below were calculated by the Australian Bureau of Statistics prior to COVID-19.
The employment level for the accommodation industry remained fairly stable between 2000 and 2019, apart from some minor fluctuations. In 2020, however, figures have declined significantly from 105,500 in 2019 to 75,200 in 2020, representing the lowest employment level recorded since 2000. Projections indicate a growth in employments levels, to 112,900 by 2024. The food and beverage services industry has also experienced a notable decline between 2019 and 2020 (from 819,800 to 579,100), this comes after two decades of strong growth which began in 2000 at around 500,600. Employment levels are predicted to increase in this industry to 889,000 by 2024.
Most hospitality-related occupations are projected to show growth to 2024, with the strongest growth expected for Café Workers at close to 19% and Chefs with over 16%.
Program enrolments in hospitality-related qualifications have increased slightly to about 102,270 in 2019, after decreasing in both 2017 and 2018 which followed on from a peak of approximately 116,030 in 2016. Completions followed a relatively similar pattern, although one year later, peaking at approximately 37,720 in 2017 before declining to around 31,610 in 2019.
The majority of training was in the certificate II (36%), certificate III (34%) or diploma or higher (18%) level, and predominantly took place within the Certificate I & II in Hospitality (42%), Certificate III & IV in Hospitality (39%) and Hospitality Management (Diploma & Advanced Diploma) (18%). The main intended occupations were Hospitality Workers, and Accommodation and Hospitality Managers.
Close to 61% of all training was delivered by private training providers, with a small proportion delivered by schools (18%) and TAFE institutes (15%). There were some variations between qualifications, including schools delivering of 41% of training for Certificate I & II in Hospitality. Close to two thirds (63%) of all training was Commonwealth and state government funded, with the remaining split between international fee for service (21%) and domestic fee for service (15%).
Almost half of all training was undertaken by students residing in either Queensland (25%) or New South Wales (23%), followed by overseas (19%) and Victoria (12%). Training was predominantly delivered in Queensland (29%), New South Wales (28%), Victoria (20%) and Western Australia (13%).
Apprentice and trainee commencements have been declining steadily since 2011, with roughly 7,830 commencements recorded in 2019. Completions have also trended down since 2012 apart from a brief rise in 2017, and a slight increase in 2019 to approximately 4,850 (compared to roughly 4,440 in 2018). Hospitality Worker was the most common intended occupation, followed by Hotel Service Manager. The highest proportion of apprentices in training were reported by Queensland (33%), followed by Victoria (24%), New South Wales (20%) and Western Australia (15%).
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According to the Tourism, Travel and Hospitality IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast, the top priority skills in the Tourism, Travel and Hospitality industry (inclusive of the Hospitality sector) are:
In addition to these priority skills, the job vacancy data shows that communication is the top generic skill in demand by employers in the Food and Beverage Services industry. According to job advertisements the top occupations in demand are Waiters and Baristas, with Compass Group PLC, Burger King and Spotless Group identified as the top employers.
The Tourism, Travel and Hospitality IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast also highlighted that Waiters were one of the top growth roles for the industry, with it estimated that an additional 21,800 workers would be needed to fill this type of role by 2023.
Below is a list of industry-relevant organisations and associations. Hyperlinks have been included where available.
Australian Trade Commission (Austrade)
South Australian Tourism Commission
NSW Business Chamber - Tourism
Queensland Tourism Industry Council
Tasmanian Hospitality Association
Tourism Industry Council South Australia
Victoria Tourism Industry Council
Accommodation Association of Australia
Australian Culinary Federation
Australian Regional Tourism Network
Australian Tourism Export Council
Exhibition and Event Association of Australasia
Guiding Organisations Australia
Restaurant & Catering Australia
Tourism Accommodation Australia
Tourism Hospitality Catering Institute of Australia
Tourism and Transport Forum Australia
Department of Employment 2020, Employment Projections, available from the Labour Market Information Portal
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2020, Employed persons by Occupation unit group of main job (ANZSCO), Sex, State and Territory, August 1986 onwards, 6291.0.55.003 - EQ08, viewed 1 August 2020 https://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/6291.0.55.003May%202020?OpenDocument
Australian Bureau of Statistics 2017, 2016 Census – employment, income and unpaid work, TableBuilder. Findings based on use of ABS TableBuilder data.
Training data has been extracted from the National VET Provider Collection, Total VET Student and Courses from the following training package or qualifications:
This includes superseded qualifications and training packages.
Data covers a range of selected student and training characteristics in the following categories and years:
Total VET students and courses data is reported for the calendar year. Program enrolments are the qualifications, courses and skill-sets in which students are enrolled in a given period. For students enrolled in multiple programs, all programs are counted. Program completion indicates that a student has completed a structured and integrated program of education or training. Location data uses student residence. Subject enrolment is registration of a student at a training delivery location for the purpose of undertaking a module, unit of competency or subject. For more information on the terms and definitions, please refer to the Total VET students and courses: terms and definitions document.
Low counts (less than 5) are not reported to protect client confidentiality.
Percentages are rounded to one decimal place. This can lead to situations where the total sum of proportions in a chart may not add up to exactly 100%.
SIT Tourism, Travel and Hospitality Training Package apprentice and trainee data has been extracted from the National Apprentice and Trainee collection, including:
Priority skills data have been extracted from the Tourism, Travel and Hospitality IRC’s 2019 Skills Forecast.
Job vacancy data have been extracted from Burning Glass Technologies 2020, Labor Insight Real-time Labor Market Information Tool, Burning Glass Technologies, Boston, viewed July 2020, https://www.burning-glass.com.
Data shown represent most requested generic skills, occupations and employers according to internet job postings in Australia between July 2017 and June 2020 filtered by ANZSIC and ANZSCO classification levels listed below.
