¿Más trabajo, mejor trabajo? El caso de los trabajadores y trabajadoras de las agencias de viajes de Ciudad de Buenos Aires.

Abstract: Tourism in Argentine is a phenomenon known for its growing economic and social development. Owing to its diversity and transversality,  it is difficult to delimit and, occupationally,  it is very heterogeneous in the range of activities offered. Therefore, this study focuses from a sociological view on the female and male tour operators who do their work in travel agencies in Ciudad Autónoma de Buenos Aires between 2003 and 2010, with the aim of exploring the type of work and service organization. First of all, from a more quantitative view, it does not consider the job quality. Secondly, it is necessary to relate the growth and its relation to employment. That is to say, the importance of that sector  to generate employment in Argentine, presenting a growth of 61.38% between 2002 and 2008. As travel agencies play an important role as an intermediary between supply and demand for tourist services,  I wonder how the organization of work in these agencies is, how female and male tour operators are contrated, how many hours and days they work in this service sector, which increases or decreases its activity in relation to the season of the year or the demand increase. These questions have a distinctive feature, mainly because tourism is framed by the bitter memories left by the 2001 crisis and driven by the implicit assumption that it has a positive effect on employment, by the mere fact that it rapidly generates jobs. It is important to explain that this study involves employment, not in economic terms but in relation to its development, ie, in order to know to what extent it increases or decreases in the labor market, since it is an important part of the work context.