Career optimism of culturally and linguistically diverse hotel workers in the pandemic age

Abstract The impact of COVID-19 on workers in accommodation and food services—which account for a large proportion of the hospitality sector—is severe, with more than one third of these workers losing their jobs. Against this backdrop, there is heightened interest in the concept of career optimism, yet a dearth of empirical research. Our study addresses this gap by investigating the factors that influence the career optimism of culturally and linguistically diverse (CALD) hotel workers. Using a qualitative study, we found a temporal facet of career optimism for CALD workers, and developed a model to show the individual and contextual factors that enabled and inhibited the career optimism of this group. We thus advance hospitality literature on the careers of CALD workers in hotels and offer practical implications to help CALD hospitality workers stay vocationally optimistic during crisis events such as COVID-19.