EMPLOYMENT STRUCTURES OF SMHES IN TURKEY Fatmagul CETINEL Medet YOLAL Murat EMEKSIZ Zerrin ASAN Anadolu University Turizm ve Otel Isl. Y.O. 26470 Eskisehir, TURKEY {fatay, myolal, memeksiz, zasan}@anadolu.edu.tr Abstract By its very nature, the hotel industry is a labour-intensive service industry, depending „on the social and technical skills of its personnel, their ingenuity and hard work, their commitment and attitude‟ for its success. The aim of the study is to analyze the employment structure of SMHEs in Turkey and compare the differences between urban and resort hotels. Findings from 313 SMHEs revealed that managerial employment is higher in urban hotels than the resorts. It was also seen that resort and urban hotels have differing structures in employment in terms of full-time employment, student trainees, employment from the host community, employment from the other regions and employment of personnel skilled in foreign languages. The findings of the research have major implications for governmental bodies and the educational institutions interested in the quality of employment and the sustainability of tourism SMEs. Key words: Employment; Employee; SME; SMHE; Human resources INTRODUCTION SMEs play an important role in the economies of countries because of their employment generating characteristics. European tourism industry is largely a SME- dominated sector with over 99 percent of firms employing fewer than 250 individuals (Coetzer, 2001). In the same manner the vast majority of the accommodation establishments worldwide are SMEs (Buhalis and Main, 1998) and the same is valid for Turkish tourism industry. Accommodation enterprises in Turkey are classified legally as 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5 star rated hotels, motels, holiday villages, bed and breakfast, camping, chalets, apart hotels, hotels with special certificates, hostels, sport complex, second