Hospitality - Passion Or Punishment?
Our industry has been struggling for the past few years. It started during Covid, when hospitality was brought to a standstill and the only thing we could really take home from it was takeaway food in paper boxes. And let’s be honest — even then, many of us were ordering mostly to support our favourite places.
But once the pandemic passed, everything came back at full speed. Cities came alive again, terraces filled up, venues found a new rhythm, and for a moment it seemed as if hospitality was heading for a strong comeback. New businesses were opening everywhere, optimism was in the air, and the energy felt real. Very few people were willing to admit that another crisis was already gathering above us.
The first blow came quickly. Many of the people who had been working in hospitality simply left. During the pandemic, they found new direction and redirected their energy into other industries. Higher salaries, more stable routines, and a better work-life balance suddenly felt far more appealing than a life built around late shifts, weekends, and constant pressure. Hospitality lost a huge number of the people who had been keeping it alive for years.
Not long after, another problem followed. Economic uncertainty, rising costs, and a deeply divided society hit the sector from every angle. Energy became more expensive. Ingredients became more expensive. Services became more expensive. Running a venue became harder than ever, and many businesses found themselves stuck in a constant battle between quality, price, and survival.
At the same time, guests themselves began to change. A new generation of consumers thinks differently. They are more cautious, more mindful, more health-conscious, and often more selective in how they spend. What once felt normal is no longer guaranteed. People choose more carefully, weigh the value of an experience more critically, and their relationship with alcohol, leisure, and hospitality as a whole is shifting.
And yet, perhaps the greatest issue facing our industry does not lie in numbers, inflation, or changing consumer behaviour. Perhaps it lies in the very essence of hospitality itself — people with passion. They seem to be disappearing. And credit to those few who are still here.
This is nothing new. Hospitality has always had high turnover. But today, it no longer feels like the natural movement of people through a fast-paced environment. Today, it feels as though the industry is losing those who once saw a future in it, while failing to attract enough new people who might still be able to discover one.
Honestly, it is not hard to understand why. In a time when success is often associated with comfort, flexibility, and quick results, very few people are eager to spend twelve hours on their feet, carry responsibility for guests, their team, and the entire atmosphere of a place, and still keep a smile on their face. There was a time when one of the reasons people entered hospitality was the chance to make relatively quick money. But over time, for many of us, this became a craft we truly fell in love with. Today, low wages have become one of the main reasons people do not enter the industry at all.
Another issue is the distorted idea of career growth. Hospitality offers an enormous number of opportunities, but it is not an industry where respect, experience, and the ability to lead people can be skipped over. It demands patience, discipline, humility, and the willingness to go through the full journey. Not everyone is ready for that. And not everyone even wants that anymore.
At the same time, it would be unfair to pretend the problem lies only with the new generation or changing values. Part of the blame belongs to the industry itself. Toxic workplaces, poor leadership, weak communication, burned-out managers, lack of support, and the long-term romanticising of overwork — all of these are reasons why hospitality does not attract people, but pushes them away. And rightly so.
This is exactly where the line between passion and punishment begins to blur.
Because hospitality can be a beautiful craft. It can give people a sense of community, identity, purpose, and an incredible amount of life experience. Very few industries can offer so many opportunities for education, personal growth, travel, competitions, guest shifts, bar shows, distillery visits, and encounters with people who can move you forward both professionally and personally. Hospitality is not just a job. For many, it is a lifestyle, a rhythm, an energy, and a space in which they can grow.
And that is exactly why it can be so dangerous.
Because when we love something, we are willing to forgive it more than we should. We ignore the exhaustion. We justify the pressure. We tolerate unhealthy environments. We convince ourselves that all of it simply comes with the territory. That it is the price we pay for doing what we love.
But it is not.
I called this article Hospitality – Passion or Punishment. The inspiration came from Dostoevsky’s Crime and Punishment. Not because hospitality is a tragedy, but because it too carries a powerful inner conflict. It can be a passion. But the moment a profession becomes a measure of a person’s worth, it begins to feel like punishment. And the harshest punishment is often not handed down by the system, a manager, or a guest. It comes from our own conscience, our exhaustion, and our inability to walk away from something we still love.
I understand those for whom this craft feels like punishment. I admire those for whom it is still a passion. But if hospitality is to survive in a healthy form, it is not enough to simply hope that more passionate people will appear. We need to build an environment where passion is not paid for with self-sacrifice, exhaustion, and the quiet collapse of personal life.
Because hospitality does not deserve people who merely survive it.
It deserves people who are able to truly live in it.
