Attributes of Tourism Graduates: Comparison Between Employers' Evaluation and Graduates' Perceptions

Abstract

The tourism industry requires that increasing attention be paid not only to the quality of products and services but also to the quality of the human resources that constitute one of its major assets, since tourism is essentially a people-centered service industry. As such, a high-quality skilled workforce will ensure greater competitiveness and innovation, improved job prospects, repeat tourist visits, and economic growth in South Africa. This study aims to establish how tourism graduates perceived their abilities in terms of knowledge and skills and how the tourism industry evaluated tourism graduates' actual abilities in terms of knowledge and skills within the tourism industry. The researchers adopted a sequential, explanatory mixed-method that entails combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The researchers conducted a quantitative survey of a purposive sample of 561 managers, supervisors, and owners of tourism industry establishments, as well as tourism graduates exposed to the industry and those working in the tourism industry. Semistructured interviews were also conducted with 12 participants who were purposively selected. This study found that the tourism industry experiences graduates as being comfortable with technology, having a professional appearance, as well as outgoing—their three top actual abilities. However, graduates were perceived to lack entrepreneurial skills. In addition, work experience, negotiation skills, and career planning were among the lowest ranked actual abilities of tourism graduates. Actual knowledge and skills gaps indicate a lack of the educational expertise required, as it underpins the curriculum in a tourism qualification and adds extensive value to the tourism industry when recruiting, training, and developing staff.

Employability attributes of hospitality graduates and expectations of hotel managers

“…The nature of employability is changing (Wakelin-Theron et al, 2019a;Jezard, 2018). It is becoming increasingly difficult to define the term in today's society because of the wide range of definitions that exist in current literature.…”

“…Various studies have been conducted in South Africa and abroad regarding the employability attributes required in the tourism and hospitality industry (Spowart, 2011;Caiyod et al, 2015;Jonck & Minnaar, 2015;Khatibi et al, 2015;Wakelin-Theron et al, 2019a;Wessels et al, 2017). However, most studies were conducted in the general tourism and hospitality industry and public higher education intuitions.…”

The influence of work shifts on burnout for millennial chefs in The Western Cape, South Africa

“…Millennial employees share many of the following characteristics -they value social connections, enjoy working in groups (Sánchez-Hernández et al, 2019) and are considered as creative, energetic, and charismatic (Ray & Wakelin-Theron, 2018). These employees are expected to have a wide variety of skills and attributes to work in the changing tourism industry that is often volatile, unknown, complex, and ambiguous (VUCA) (Wakelin-Theron et al, 2019). It is, however, possible to mentor them to become competent employees in a changing environment (Satterly et al, 2018;Wakelin-Theron, 2021).…”

“…Millennials are furthermore not prepared for the industry norms and leave the hospitality industry due to their pessimistic view regarding high levels of job stress and burnout (Nurdin & Rohaeni, 2020). It is essential to have the right set of skills to work within the tourism and hospitality environment (Wakelin-Theron et al, 2019).…”

“…Often chefs also use drugs and alcohol as a sleeping aid (Pidd et al, 2015). An optimal employability skill set which include soft skills such as interpersonal skills, customer orientation and conflict resolution skills could assist chefs in their quest to overcome burnout symptoms (Wakelin-Theron et al, 2019).…”