Communication Skills and Success for Hospitality TVET Graduates Post-Pandamic: A Review

Abstract

This review focuses on the communication skills of TVET hospitality graduates in the postpandemic era. This review paper examines the importance and method of communication skills in the hospitality industry to comprehend their roles in order to understand current demands from employers in the workplace. By examining the literature, this paper seeks to expand the existing knowledge of communication skills for the hotel industry in Malaysia. The hospitality industry has faced various crises over the past decade, including economic downturns, terrorist attacks, and natural disasters, but the scale and magnitude of the COVID-19 crisis have been unparalleled. Although the COVID-19 pandemic has almost recovered, communication skills in the hospitality industry have become increasingly important in the wake of the pandemic to survive. For that reason, a study has been conducted to delve into the specific communication skills that are highly valued by employers in the current context. By understanding these skills, TVET hospitality graduates aspiring to work in the hospitality industry can better prepare themselves to meet the demands of the post-pandemic era. This review has extensively utilised the secondary sources of data collected from recent studies by researchers from academic journals, articles, and websites, with the time frame of the current studies ranging from 2019 to 2023. A qualitative technique, namely a content analysis, has been employed to analyse the collected articles.The search results indicate that the hospitality industry has experienced significant transformations due to the pandemic. As a result, communication skills have become indispensable for job searching, collaboration, effective customer service, conflict resolution, leadership, professional growth, and continuous learning. The authors offer insights and a summary of the supported literature on communication skills needed in the hospitality industry during the post-pandemic period, along with future research suggestions in this field.