Addressing the Linguistic Gaps in a Tourism Training Programme

Abstract

Language is an important tool to enable communication between the host and guests to get the expected services. The chapter aims to address the linguistic gap in a tourism training institution and tourism establishments to respond to the language skills needed by the tourism industry. The Forever Resort Academy course information and job advertisement will be analysed to assess the commitment of the institution to address the language gap. The efforts of tourism businesses and their willingness to address language gaps in the tourism industry were examined through semi-structured interviews with 15 tourism businesses in the Gariep Dam, inclusive of owners and managers. The chapter draws on Halliday's genre theory and Bhatia's interdiscursivity theory in understanding the importance of language for tourism purposes. This chapter encourages tourism training institutions to prepare graduates adequately by focusing more on the language aspect if they wish to produce tourism graduates that can compete in the global tourism market.