Tourism Education And Work Experience

Tourism education supply has faced a rapid growth over the past three decades (Micheal Morgan, 2004). It is a global phenomenon (Joseph& Joseph, 2000) and the reason behind is to guarantee qualified and well trained employees on the tourism employment market as demands keep on growing (M.S, Mohd Zahari, 2004). Both the government and the private sector play an important role in the provision of tourism education; at secondary and tertiary level. In Mauritius, tourism education undergoes a ‘pyramid-type program system’; meaning that tourism curricula is available a secondary programme, diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes (Tertiary Education Commission, 2010).

Tourism education has been criticized for producing a tourism workforce regardless of the quality. Quality workforce is of great influence as it plays a key role in organizations meeting customers’ expectations and satisfaction (Evans & Lindsay, 1999; Zeithaml et al., 1990). As students embark on tourism education programmes, it is expected that they come out with high quality knowledge, skills and the ability to meet the needs of the industry (Goeldner and Ritchie, 2006; Harris and Zhao, 2004; Kok, 2000). Szambowski et al (2002) put forward that significant emphasis should be placed on students gaining practical experience outside the classroom learning environment.

However, increase in offers for tourism education has raised an alarm about graduates having difficulties in finding a tourism job in the coming decades. But still, the industry needs the services of qualified and committed workforce to impact positively on customer’s satisfaction of experience.

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To meet the industry demand, work experience has been added to tourism curricula to equip students with the technical, operational and professional skills under the form of internship. Bullock, Gould and Hejmadi (2009, p. 482) cited that internships “have enhanced their understanding of their own life choices, enabled the acquisition of transferable skills and provided a tangible link between theory and application”. It is the tool that gives students the opportunity to examine career possibilities in a realistic and ‘real world’ environment and to explore a possible fit with a particular enterprise (Kapoor, 2000; Waryszak, 1999).

Several researches were carried out in accordance to work experience and its importance in the tourism and hospitality perspective. It is essential according to Getz (1994) to investigate how work experience changes attitude and perception of students towards tourism and hospitality careers. Demonte & Vaden (1987) stated that the factor that had the greatest influence on students’ decision for a tourism career was work experience. Further findings supposed that it may discourage students to enter the industry, instead of them looking forward to pursue a tourism career (Busby, 2003; Boud, Solomon & Symes, 2001).

Tourism as an employer

There has been a rapid ascendancy of tourism to the world’s largest industry since the whole world continues to travel in a robust manner. Tourism as a sector has grown more rapidly than the total employment in the world economy (WTO, 2005; WTTC, 2005a). It is a service oriented industry, based on a labor intensive production system, meaning that employees play a major role in the delivery of products and services that influence the overall tourism experience (Chellen & Nunkoo).

Statistics depict out that world tourism employment is estimated at 258.6 million year to date, which is approximately 8,3% of total employment and it is forecasted to increase by a percentage of 2.3% per annum, to reach a figure of 323.9 million by 2021. These jobs include both direct and indirect employment (Justin Matthew Pang, 2010).

Direct employment refers to the jobs helping in the creation of the business itself while indirect jobs refer to businesses producing goods and services that assist in supplying visitors and travelers directly (Justin Matthew Pang, 2010). Direct employment in the tourism industry is 99 million to date and it is forecasted to increase to 120 million by 2021 (WTTC, 2007). In Mauritius, for the year 2011, total tourism employment is figured at 28 039 (Survey of employment and Earnings in large Establishments). Beside such statistics, Li (2007) put forward that there will be a shortage of talent in the industry but this goes in contradiction to what Evans (1993) and Busby (1994) mentioned. They both put forward that the trend on increasing application for tourism related courses will accordingly, result in a surplus of graduates on the tourism labor market.

Tourism has proved to be a major employer and contributor to the world economy. But still, the tourism industry is being criticized for creating low skilled and low paid jobs with low satisfaction, high level of staff turnover, waste of trained personnel and limited scope for promotion (Kusluvan and Kusluvan, 2000; Chellen and Nunkoo, 2010; Richardson, 2008; Richardson 2009; Roney and Ã-ztin, 2007). Such critics give rise to one of the major challenge of the industry which is to attract and retain qualified and motivated staff.

Employers across the world, whether large or small, face the same challenge; attracting and retaining people with the right skills and personal attitudes and attributes to deliver a quality experience to tourists. It is a sensible issue for the industry as the tourism sector depends much on people (Baum, 1999). One of the reasons why there is such a need for people is because of the nature of its guest services and also its late adoption of technology and newfangled management process (Bull, 1995). This global phenomenon of attracting and retaining qualified workforce was once an isolated case for some markets but it has made its way through, to the whole world industry.

Although there is much literature about tourism, there is very few addressing students’ attitude and perception to further a career in the industry (Roney and Ã-ztin, 2007). Now that the phenomenon is widely spread, the need to investigate on the issue is becoming more and more important for the whole tourism universe. According to Chellen and Nunkoo (2010), this would be helpful to get a clear view of the status of tourism jobs in the human resources planning process for the tourism sector. While working on tourism and hospitality workforce development programs, knowing tourism job status is deemed bringing more accuracy for the preparation of inline strategies. Human Resource plans focuses on the employment needs of large international tourism organization, especially in hospitality, neglecting how students perceive tourism as an employer. It is necessary for tourism and hospitality providers to attend to one of their most precious assets, namely, their human resource, if they want to be competitive on the marketplace. In fact it has been argued that without employees having a positive attitude towards their work, there is minimal chance for the organization to achieve customer satisfaction and loyalty, thus an advantage over competitors (Rosentbluth, 1991; Zeithaml & Bitner, 1996).

Various researchers have been questioning the reluctance of many students to embark themselves in a career in the tourism and hospitality industry. They started to investigate in secondary and tertiary institutions, where the potential new recruits are found. Students from secondary schools were those who were the least exposed to experience in the tourism industry. Ross (1994) conducted a research in a secondary school in Australia and results showed that they had high level of interest in working at management level the tourism industry. Further researches were carried out at tertiary level as well as vocational institutions. Barron and Maxwell (1993) studied the perception of new and continuing students at Scottish higher education institutions and found that while students recognized the career opportunities attached to the tourism and hospitality industry, the majority could not foresee a long-term career in the industry. This is further confirmed by Johns and McKechnie, (1995) who stated that 50% of students choose careers out of the industry upon completion of their studies. Richardson (2008) research on Australian students revealed that more than 50% of tourism and hospitality undergraduate students were already contemplating careers outside the industry. According to Richardson (2009) the students look for job in more remunerative sectors upon graduation. Bloome (2006) cited that many students who embark on a tourism and hospitality curriculum do not join the tourism and hospitality industry upon graduation. Students complained not having the opportunity to develop managerial skills in tourism jobs according to Purcell & Quinn (1995) while Casado (1992) investigated the basic expectations of students in the tourism and hospitality sector, and found their expectation to be fairly realistic before graduation. Students failing to integrate the industry for work result in wastage of trained and experienced personnel and above all, high staff turnover (Doherty, Guerrier, Jamieson, Lashley & Lockwood, 2001; Jenkins, 2001; Pavesic & Brimer, 1990; Zacerreli, 1985).

According to Kusluvan (2001), it is important to understand the attitude of students in order to gain an insight as to why many of them are disinclined to join the line or choose to leave the industry after a relatively short period. In order to understand this, Kusluvan (2003), states that it is important to see the perspectives of students who are currently pursuing a tourism and hospitality curriculum and those who have graduated. For the purpose of this research, only those ongoing a tourism curriculum will be questioned.

Students’ opinion about jobs in the tourism sector get them to be reluctant in majoring a career in the tourism industry. Gu et al (2007) conducted a research in China and the students claimed that career development in the tourism and hospitality industry was not sufficiently promising. Furthermore, according to a research in China (Jiang and Tribe, 2009), students classified tourism job a short-lived profession. They were not committed to develop a career in the field where the nature of the tourism job itself, clearly affects their decision. Unlikely, there are actually, six million people employed in the tourism and hospitality industry in China. The statistics for tourism job in the country is forecasted to rise by one million in the next ten years.

Students’ commitment to tourism jobs is what determines the prosperity of the sector on a worldwide avenue. As per Roney and Ã-ztin (2007), students’ commitment is one of the major factors that shape the image of the tourism industry positively. Through exposure to the industry, tourism and hospitality students become considerably less interested in selecting tourism and hospitality as their first choice for a career (Kusluvan & Kusluvan, 2000; Getz, 1994). Students compare their expected career goals to the offer of the tourism industry, and as they notice the negative gap between those two, their interest for the industry deteriorates. Their images of the industry include poor treatment of staff, little or no training given, and effort outweighing rewards. For students who choose tourism education as first choice and having a clear view of what they will be facing in reality, their attitude towards working in the industry are positive (Lu and Adler, 2009). Those who embark on a tourism education trek without realistic knowledge of the career opportunities and working conditions, claim that they would have not done so if they had a proper career guidance and orientation right from the start at secondary level (Roney & Ã-ztin, 2007). Hence according to Kusluvan and Kusluvan, proper measures like efficient career guidance and orientation, written exam supplemented by interviews, psychometric tests like personality and service orientation tests, should be adopted to reduce uncertainties of future tourism students about tourism job.

Most research pertaining to students’ perception and attitude towards the tourism industry end up stating that tourism students or fresh graduates had a negative image of the sector as an employer. Kusluvan & Kusluvan certified his works by evidence that students have an unfavorable evaluation towards different dimensions of working in the tourism industry. According to Getz (1994), the percentage of people who considered the hospitality attractive decreased from 43% to 29% over the periods 1978 – 1992. This represents a nearly half percentage decrease in the statistics. Most hospitality graduates have been found to believe that a number of extrinsic factors, such as poor working conditions, high pressure, long working hours, and a lack of motivation, training programs, and career opportunities, may contribute to poor employment aspirations, high turnover rates, and the wastage of educational investment (e.g., Kang and Gould, 2002; Jenkins, 2001). This should be a cause for concern since attitudes are considered to be effective predictors of intention and behavior (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980), and negative attitude would make students less willing to look for tourism jobs.

Several books and journals have been published on tourism, but very few were to address the issue of tourism students’ perception towards the tourism and hospitality industry in Mauritius. To enlighten the situation in Mauritius, this paper seeks to identify the factors influencing students’ perception and attitude towards furthering a career in the tourism sector in Mauritius. Though there is a lack of such literature pertaining to developing countries, the paper will try to adapt the research to the country which is a developing one and as well the fastest growing region in global tourism (Chellen & Nunkoo).

This paper aims at studying the attitude and perception of tourism undergraduate students towards a career in the tourism industry in Mauritius. To further understand how attitude and perception helps to predict one’s intention to integrate the industry, this paper will make use of the Theory of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), which predicts behaviour by intention. Then, to strictly measure the students’ attitude and perception, an instrument of 9 dimensions adapted from that developed and tested by Kusluvan & Kusluvan (2000) will be used. The 9 dimensions are classified as nature of work, social status, industry person congeniality, physical working condition, pay and fringe benefits, co-workers, promotion opportunity, managers and commitment. Two likely studies have been carried out in Mauritius by Chellen and Nunkoo (2010) and a University of Mauritius tourism graduate (2011). However this paper, in addition to the 9 dimensions of Kusluvan and Kusluvan (2000), bring up the issue of work experience for differentiation, as a tool capable of shaping students’ attitude and perception towards a career in the industry upon graduation.