Sustaining Human Resources through Talent Management Strategies and Employee Engagement in the Middle East Hotel Industry

This study aims to develop a deeper understanding on talent management strategies to encourage employee engagement in the tourism industry of the Middle East during and after COVID-19 and further to reveal the impacts of employee engagement on customer satisfaction. This study was conducted qualitatively, where open-ended questions were posed to 37 managers through semi-structured interviews. Managers in the human resource domain of numerous hotels across the Middle East located in countries such as Lebanon, United Arab Emirates, Egypt, Jordan, Bahrain, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Turkey and the Sultanate of Oman participated in the study. The majority of Hotels had five-star ratings, and others four-star. The study themes were qualitatively developed from the data using inductive content analysis deployed in QSR NVivo. The results showed that by implementing appropriate talent management strategies, engagement and, consequently, job satisfaction of hotel staff could be enhanced. The COVID-19 pandemic showed that realistic targets must need be set for the effective retention of talented employees. The results imply that a lack of resources and investments in talent management strategies (e.g., reward system) can lead to the loss of talented employees. The overarching impact of talented employees is increased customer satisfaction as service quality is improved and interactions between staff and clients are enhanced. The results are beneficial for scholars as well as leaders in the hotel industry of the Middle Eastern region.