Managing Multicultural Teams in Tourism industry: Club Med Case Analysis

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to put intercultural management into perspective by trying to explore how a multicultural company in the tourism industry such as Club Med can ensure the management of a diversified workforce.

We argue that the growing diversity of the customer’s characteristics and needs as well as the growing diversity of the workforce in connection with the labor’s changes has contributed to the gradual integration of multicultural work teams within companies, which leads to taking this cultural diversity into account as a central element of management.

To highlight this reality, we have opted for an exploratory research that is based on a single case study of the multinational company Club Med Marrakech. The main objective was to collect the practices already implemented by this entity in order to manage its multiculturalism and to assess employees’ perceptions of these practices. The data for the study was collected through 16 semi-structured interviews conducted with Club Med’s HR managers and employees.

This research concluded that Club Med’s employees are comprised and supportive of diversity and most of the respondents are satisfied with the measures adopted by the company to manage the heterogeneity of cultures. Our findings are expected to provide managers who are leading multicultural teams with managerial practices about how to effectively manage cultural diversity in the workplace so that they can parlay it into an advantage.

Keywords: Club Med, cultural diversity, intercultural management, multicultural teams, tourism.

JEL Classification: M54

Paper type: Empirical research