The relationship between emotional labor and burnout in tourism organizations: A study on hotels

Emotional labor, which became increasingly significant notion in the service sector has defined as express of employees's emotions in line with corporates expectations. In the study, a correlation between emotional labor and burnout has been seeked.The study has been made by having surveys with the staff of twelve five star hotels. The survey has been done by two hundred hotel employees from various departments including food and beverage, front office and public relations departments. In this study, Hospitality Emotional Labor Scale (HELS) founded by Chu & Murrmann (2006) and Avcı ve Boylu (2010) which validated to Turkish has been used. Meanwhile, burnout scale of Maslach and Jackson (1981) and also Ergin (1992) technique has been adopted which also called as Maslach Burnout Inventory. As a result of the survey, only gender, age, department and monthly salary have a moderation effect on emotional labor dimensions. Moreover, marital status, level of education, type of contract (partime, fulltime, contract based) and working conditions haven't any effect on emotional labor dimensions. Men has more tendency for deep acting incontrast to women and genuine acting is at its lowest level between the age group of 26-30 while it is at its highest level between the age group of 41-45. Furthermore, the employees who are working in the food and beverage department and whose monthly salary is at high level shows more genuine acting. On the other hand, only marital status, lenght of employment in current hotel, department and monthly salary have a moderating effect on burnout. Single employees depersonalisation and burnout levels are at a higher level while a moderating effect has not been observed between burnout and gender, age, level of education, lenght of employment in hospitality sector, type of contract haven't any effect on burnout dimensions. In addition, it has been found that increase in the working hours decreases burnout perceptions. Meanwhile, when the relationship between emotional labor dimensions and burnout has investigated surface acting has a positive correlation. However, there is no strong correlation found between deep acting and burnout. As a last resort, there is a negative correlation found between genuine acting and burnout Keywords: Emotional Labor, Burnourt, Emotional Labor Dimensions, Emotional Labor in Tourism Industry, Burnout in Tourism Industry, Hospitality Industry