Presentation

Robots carry the guests’ luggage instead of messengers; machines prepare and bake pizzas without the traditional pizza maker; tourists make hotel reservations and buy airline tickets through a virtual assistant; passengers check in, weigh and check their luggage using a digital totem... Is this a scene from a science fiction movie or the reality that awaits us in the coming years?​

Based on this provocation, Labor Movens: Study and Research Group on Working Conditions in Tourism, linked to the Center for Excellence in Tourism of the University of Brasília (UnB), present the 3rd edition of the Virtual Seminar “Critical Perspectives on Work in Tourism”. This year’s theme is “The future of work in Tourism”.

The main objective of this edition is to reflect on the trends of the future of work in tourism, regarding the technological advances of Industry 4.0 and the context of deregulation of labor relations.

We do not know, of course, if we will live in a huge dystopia in the world of hospitality and tourism. What is certain is that the capital does not measure and will not measure efforts to intensify the exploration of workers through investment in technology, aiming to reduce costs and extract surplus value. Contrary to what one might imagine, technology is used in the most diverse productive sectors, both to increase the pace of work and to control the working class.

We should not lose sight of the fact that the definition and intensification of working hours are, historically, a direct result of the tension between the bourgeoisie and the working class. There lies the importance of organizing tourism workers and strengthening the category. There also lies the importance of bringing this and other subjects to the University and academic tourism events, without letting ourselves be deceived by the traps of the market.

​Once again, we want the seminar to be an important space for reflection among all interested parties. May we overcome the walls that surround universities and that these reflections reach, also and especially, the workers who make tourism happen in this country.

Angela Teberga

Brasília University

Thiago Sebastiano de Melo

Brasília University

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