Tourism has registered unprecedented growth since the beginning of the new millennium and has been welcomed in tourist destinations as a source of economic development. However, it has not been exempted from criticism due to the socio-economic externalities produced in host communities. Among the affected sectors, labour regimes have been under the spotlight of critical analysis. In times of polycrisis, outsourcing, flexibilization and precarization of labur working conditions have been used by tourism companies to maximize profits at the expense of wage workers' rights. Equally, the informal economy, present in several productive sectors, has not been an exception for the tourism sector. Moreover, the processes of informalization of the workforce have often been invisibilised. At the same time, these jobs have been essential for the functioning of the tourism sector, especially in mature tourist destinations and markets.
Since the emergence of platform capitalism in the late 2000s, there has been a proliferation of informal work in sectors such as tourist short-term rentals platforms, tourism property brokers, the housekeeping services, the tourist guiding sector, the riders’ platforms and the urban mobility services. Also, informal street sellers of tourist-oriented goods and informal tourism brokers actively seeking to procure business for restaurants, hotels, tours etc. by approaching visitors on the street has been on the rise, especially in mature tourist destinations. Finally, many of these jobs are performed by migrant workers who find tourism an easy entry sector and little professionalization. These same characteristics, together with the high seasonality, are key for employers who find in informal employment a way to minimize fixed costs, reduce tax pressure and maximize profits.
The research is based in the city of Barcelona. Through participant observation and semi-structured interviews with informal workers, the aim is to understand the dimensions of informal tourism economies.
