Based on the grounded theory, this study examined the experience of employment insecurity of travel industry workers during the COVID-19. In-depth interviews were conducted with travel industry workers who experienced employment insecurity after COVID-19. We conducted the theoretical sampling until the data achieved the satuaration. The data were continuously reviewed by experts during the analysis processes and NVivo 12 was used to manage and analyze the data. In the open coding process, we found total of 118 concepts, 30 sub-categories, and 12 categories related to employment insecurity of travel industry during the COVID-19. The findings suggest that casual condition was turned out to be ‘tourism crisis caused by COVID-19', contextual conditions were ’industrial structure vulnerable to external factors’, ‘insufficient employment policy’ and ‘digitalization of the tourism industry’ The phenomenon was 'experience of employment insecurity of travel industry workers' and the intervening condition were 'psychological change', 'low work capacity of human resources' and 'limited turnover opportunities'. The action and interaction were 'search and utilize of employment policy', 'k-quarantine and a system-based HRM' and 'establishment of tourism employment safety net'. The consequence was 'improvement of the tourism employment structure in the New Normal Era'. In the selective coding stage, the core category was found to be 'improvement of the tourism employment structure in the New Normal Era according to tourism employment insecurity'.

COVID-19, Tourism crisis, Travel industry, Employment insecurity, Grounded theory