Strategic responses to labour shortages in European tourism SMEs: flexibility versus wage competition across six countries

European tourism SMEs face persistent post-pandemic labour shortages, yet comparative evidence on employer strategic responses across national contexts remains limited. Drawing on institutional theory, this exploratory research letter analyses staffing strategies among 170 SMEs across six European countries grouped into three institutional clusters. Chi-square tests suggest flexible working arrangements as a convergent pan-European strategy (χ² = 0.645, p = 0.986), while wage competition shows preliminary evidence of heterogeneity across clusters (χ² = 8.656, p = 0.013). Logistic regression indicates enterprises in Southern (OR = 3.53, p = 0.005) and Central-Eastern (OR = 3.25, p = 0.007) clusters show substantially higher preliminary odds of wage competition than Nordic-Continental enterprises. These exploratory findings suggest context-sensitive policy interventions may prove more effective than uniform approaches and generate testable hypotheses for future confirmatory research.