Emotional Labor in Commercial Hospitality: Motivations and Behavioural Characteristics

In the face of rapid increase of tourist arrivals, Sri Lankan Tourism is expecting a huge development in accommodation sector. This is quite obvious when one observes the fact that the current room capacity of the country is around 20,000 and Sri Lankan Tourism expects to increase it up to 40,000 in two years to cater for 2.5 million expected tourists in 2016. However, this development should not be limited to the physical facility development, a greater attention should be paid to the aspect of human resource development. Further, it is argued that emotional labor in commercial domain of hospitality is worthy paying attention to. Accordingly, this paper presents the motivations, predictors, behavioral characteristics and positive and negative organizational outcomes of emotional labor in the context of resort hotels in Sri Lanka. Important findings were concluded in relation to customer contact employees in hotels and their motivations and behavioral characteristics.