Al Marzouqi, Naser Mohamed2013-05-202013-05-202012-0690024http://bspace.buid.ac.ae/handle/1234/91The United Arab Emirates (UAE) was officially established following the departures of the British troops from Gulf in 1971. The Six Emirates decided to join and form the UAE and the seventh Emirate, Ras Al Khaimah had joined the union a year later in 1972. The UAE economy was solely dependent on revenue generated from Oil export and expatriate skilled and unskilled workforce utilized for developing the country infrastructure. As UAE population increased, authorities were forced to deal with unemployment disturbing challenges. The government had decided to initiate a nationalization program in order to train and prepare UAE job seekers to join public and private sectors. With the influx of tourism to the region and especially to the UAE during the 1980s, the government decided to pave the way for UAE national to enter the hotel and hospitality sector by introducing Emiratisation that would prepare local graduates for this booming sector of the economy. The aim of this research is to investigate the perception of nationals’ workforce with regard to employment in the hospitality industry. Also the researcher will focus on the factors that would enhance the Emiratisation programs and its obstacles. Methodology: Researcher has decided to explore and examine the subject using qualitative approach. The author has decided to inspect various articles with reference to different localization programs that have taken place in the region or other parts of the world. The impact of the programs on the local economy and to what extend these approaches were successful, must also be explored. By conducting 7 one to one interviews, collecting signed consent forms from participants and considering the entire ethical dilemma, prior to the start of the research. The audio recorded interviews were analyzed by means of color coding and recognition of the major topics (themes). Findings: Among the various topics, 35 were identified and compressed to form seven major themes prior to grouping the common ones. A model map which is positioned in the findings chapter highlights the seven main themes and all the sub-themes that were derived as a result of our research. The seven main topics will be discussed according to the order of occurrences and they are: Planning, Culture, Training, Support, Salary, Development, and Organization. Discussion: This section is formed to relate the facts and findings to the literatures on earlier studies. The purpose of the discussion at this stage was to highlight the similarities and differences among the two researches. Among the seven themes that were raised as result of study, there were three topics that were unique to this research which were A) false expectation, B) misperception and C) discipline. The literature supported the topics that were highlighted. Conclusion: The analysis of the perception takes places in this segment in order to code the seven main themes. The topics were confirmed to be related to the findings with exception of three distinctive topics that were highlighted earlier. The UAE authorities have major challenges with regards to Emiratisation, its implementation, development of Emiratis and placement of nationals in the hospitality. Study limitations were discussed in this section and further recommendations for future research underlined.enEmiratizationnationalizationSaudisationOmanisationlocalizationUnited Arab Emirates (UAE)hospitalitytraininglabor marketprogramstourismemploymentDissertation