Hospitality Degree Programs in Australia: A Continuing Evolution

Breakey, Noreen; Craig-Smith, Stephen J.

doi:10.1375/jhtm.14.2.102

Cited by 20 publications

(10 citation statements)

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“…For example, given the challenges presented to the tourism and hospitality industry to attract and retain good employees, extensive research, in the hotel context, has been undertaken to investigate employee satisfaction and its relationship to factors such as organisational trust (e.g., Chathoth et al, 2007), intention to leave (e.g., and work-family conflict (e.g., . In addition to undertaking research that is concerned with developing insight into the attitudes of the hotel workforce, other HR issues explored required skills (e.g., Burgess, 2007;Baum, 2006) which has also led to research that is focussed on educational/curriculum development (e.g., Raybould and Wilkins, 2006;Alexander, 2007;Breakey and Craig-Smith, 2007) or training and development (e.g., Kline and Harris, 2008;Poulsten, 2008). Consideration of the implications of HR to organisational strategy has also been investigated from a performance measurement perspective (e.g., McPhail et al, 2008) as well as how it contributes to a competitive advantage (e.g., Collins, 2007;Connolly and McGing, 2007), albeit to a lesser extent.…”

Section: Academic Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging the gap: An examination of the relative alignment of hospitality research and industry priorities

King

Funk

Wilkins

2011

International Journal of Hospitality Management

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Section: Academic Literaturementioning

confidence: 99%

Bridging the gap: An examination of the relative alignment of hospitality research and industry priorities

King

Funk

Wilkins

2011

International Journal of Hospitality Management

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“…The rapid growth of offerings in hospitality programs since the 1980s has been the catalyst for considerable diversity (Williams, 2005) and this has been reflected in the literature in Australia (e.g. Breakey & Craig-Smith, 2007), across both sides of the Atlantic (e.g. Gustafson, Love & Montgomery, 2005;Ladkin, 2000;Mandabach, Harrington, VanLeeuwen & Revelas, 2002), and in Asia (e.g.…”

Section: Food and Beverage Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…A key innovation drove this change. The College was responding to student demands, and higher education trends, to reduce many Australian degree programs to three years (Breakey and Craig-Smith, 2007). QAC compromised by reducing its hospitality program to three and a half years, which included a semester long industrial placement.…”

Section: Phase Two -National Surveymentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The key changes to the hospitality program from 1980 to 1984 were the reduction from 40 to 33 courses, the introduction of an industrial placement, and the 50 percent reduction of F&B studies content (to 15 percent of the program mix (Breakey & Craig-Smith, 2007). This characteristic of part-time employment which continues to the present (Barron, 2007), buoyed by record-low unemployment levels, has gone someway to mitigate the affects of reduced operational F&B studies content in the hospitality programs.…”

Section: Phase Two -National Surveymentioning

confidence: 99%

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Food for Thought: Investigating food and beverage curricular in Australian hospitality degree programs

Robinson

Breakey

Craig-Smith

2010

Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education

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introductionFood and beverage (F&B) curricular content in hospitality management degrees is generally thought to be essential but how much, and the way it is presented to students, varies considerably. Even a cursory examination of hospitality degree curricular will reveal considerable variation in the F&B approach from the 1970s to the present day. On top of this, temporal variation illustrates considerable differences depending on the nature of the providing educational institution, such as research intensive universities, vocational colleges and hotel schools. Higher education internationally is an aggressive marketplace, where increased electronic accessibility to program and course details allows tertiary institutions, prospective students and industry globally to compare and benchmark their products.The authors of this paper recently undertook an Australia-wide benchmarking exercise to ascertain how F&B curricular has been approached over the years from the development of the very first hospitality degree program in the early 1970s to the present day. The results of this exercise threw insights into how the industry, educational institutions and prospective students viewed F&B study over the last four decades. The temporal variations in philosophy and approach observed in this analysis conformed broadly to the delivery model discussed in the literature by Baker, Cattet and Riley (1995).A further exercise was then undertaken to examine all current hospitality degree programs on offer in Australia for 2008 to determine if the model held up when applied to all current program providers. The results of this second exercise, involving universities, hotel schools, and vocational colleges, required the earlier F&B model to be amended to fit all current Australian practice. The results of this exercise and the newly refined model will be of interest to all hospitality academics involved with hospitality curricular development. food and Beverage studiesHospitality education curricular, at degree offering institutions, has previously been a topic of scholarly debate. The rapid growth of offerings in hospitality programs since the 1980s has been the catalyst for considerable diversity (Williams, 2005) and this has been reflected in the literature Rimmington, 1999). Perhaps axiomatic to the debate, vis-à-vis the inclusion and extent to which F&B studies are incorporated into hospitality curricular, is the issue of 'vocationalism' . Whilst historically universities were established to train professionals (Tribe, 2003), the blossoming of the state-funded and private higher education sectors in the latter part of the twentieth century has accounted for some jostling, such that certain training is deemed more vocational and certain training is deemed more academic -or grounded in rigorous discipline. Tourism, and indeed hospitality, has existed on the margins of academe, with its practical components being generally deemed as vocational whilst practical components of, say the veterinary sciences, are considered as more aca...

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“…Incorporating education and practical training has been a preoccupation within HE (Wilks and Hemsworth 2011). Breakey and Craig-Smith (2007) argue that hospitality education should move away from subjects such as cooking and hotel operation and focus on quality management and technological applications instead; hence, the need for Ghanaian hospitality education to innovate the existing curriculum by providing the management and technological skills required by the expanding hospitality market in Ghana.…”

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confidence: 99%

Emerging trends and influences in Ghanaian hospitality industry education and employability

Sadik¹

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Whilst the scale of the employability needs of hospitality graduates is well known in developed countries, very little is known about this with regard to Ghana. There is concern in Ghana that the educational system is failing to produce employable graduates. This problem is more acute in hospitality education, where the curriculum structures may not support the effective preparation of the graduates for employment in the hospitality industry. In order to fill this gap, this research investigated the factors that influence the education and employability of hospitality graduates in Ghana, by examining the effectiveness of hospitality education in meeting the hospitality industry skills requirements and proposing a framework that will help to equip hospitality graduates with the employability skills and competencies required by the hospitality industry. To achieve this aim, a thorough literature review was carried out, which gave rise to the following research questions: 1) What is the current understanding of the concept of employability in Ghana, what employability skills and competencies does the hospitality industry need as a prerequisite for employable hospitality graduate, and how can hospitality education in Ghana meet these requirements? 2) Taking into consideration research question 1, how can the findings elucidate the problem of hospitality graduate employability in Ghana, and subsequently develop a framework to address the essential employer skills and competency requirements? Three of the existing employability models, USEM, DOTS and CareerEdge, were considered based on an extensive review of the literature on graduate employability. These models tend to be oriented towards developed countries and so may be not entirely suitable for studying a developing country like Ghana. However, the models informed the development of a Ghanaian Hospitality Employability Enhancement Framework (GHEEF) based on the findings of this research. The study provides evidence from the Ghanaian context of a lack of research focusing on the use and application of employability models for enhancing hospitality graduate employability, especially using the GHEEF to improve hospitality education. To answer the questions outlined above (and refine the GHEEF), the research was carried out using a mixed-methods approach to the data analysis which combines qualitative insights from the lived experiences of students, lecturers and employers regarding Ghanaian hospitality graduates' employability, with a questionnaire-based empirical measurement of the extent of the employability problem. An initial discussion with supervisors to achieve content validity in designing the research instruments was conducted. This was reinforced by a focus group study of hospitality lecturers, questionnaire surveys of lecturers and graduates, and a semi-structured interview of employers. The data analysis triangulated the research findings across these stakeholder groups. The main findings of the research include an acute lack of understanding of ...

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Hospitality Degree Programs in Australia: A Continuing Evolution

Cited by 20 publications

References 6 publications

Bridging the gap: An examination of the relative alignment of hospitality research and industry priorities

Bridging the gap: An examination of the relative alignment of hospitality research and industry priorities

Food for Thought: Investigating food and beverage curricular in Australian hospitality degree programs

Emerging trends and influences in Ghanaian hospitality industry education and employability

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