Is it Possible for People with Disabilities to Find Jobs in Scenic Spots? Based on Tourists' Attitude toward Employees with Disabilities in Tourist Attractions

Abstract

Exploring local employment is helpful in alleviating the dualistic imbalance of employment spaces for persons with disabilities in China. Based on previous studies, customer prejudice is an important obstacle for enterprises when considering hiring people with disabilities. To explore the possibility of employment of people with disabilities in tourist attractions, Behaviors from Intergroup Affect and Stereotypes Map was applied in this research, based on the investigation of 308 tourists from five scenic spots in three different provinces, and variance and linear regression were conducted to explore the feasibility of people with disabilities working in scenic spots. The study shows that, first, tourists generally have a mixed stereotype of "high enthusiasm and low ability" toward employees with disabilities in scenic spots, and they experience feelings of admiration and practice passive encouragement toward staff with disabilities, such as cooperating and talking with them closely. Moreover, intergroup contact between tourists and people with disabilities significantly affects tourists' attitudes toward disabled employees in scenic spots. Specifically, the experience of receiving services and providing nursing services for people with disabilities had an important positive impact on the tourists' stereotype of the capabilities of the employees, although the tourists felt jealous of them. Second, the frequency of contact with a person with disabilities had a significant positive effect on the arousal of the tourists' feelings of admiration and jealousy towards employees with disabilities. Finally, individuals who have no contact with people with disabilities in any form will experience more contempt and will reduce the occurrence of active facilitation behavior for workers with disabilities. Eventually, the gender, occupation, and personal income of tourists may interfere with the influence of intergroup contact on the attitude towards employees with disabilities in scenic spots. It should be noted that, excluding the effects of population characteristics of interference, visitors' positive emotions toward the employees, including envy and admiration, are significantly affected by service experience and contact frequency with the group with disabilities; in particular, this sentiment varies by profession and by gender of tourists: charity workers are significantly more jealous than pensioners, and women are significantly more admiring than men. Finally, several suggestions to hire people with disabilities in scenic spots in the central and western areas of China are outlined in the last part of this study. First, the leading role of the government in promoting employment needs to be strengthened, the judicial interpretation of the Labor Contract Law concerning the employment of people with disabilities should be supplemented, and insurance legislation should be promoted for their employment. In addition, vocational education and ability training for people with disabilities should be improved and scenic spots should be encouraged to allow bold employment of individuals with disabilities. Finally, more opportunities and platforms may be created to promote multimodal and frequent contact between the public and people with disabilities.

Keywords

• people with disabilities
• employment
• tourists' attitude
• the scenic area
• bias map
• stereotypes