Abstract:
The purpose of this study is to examine the attitudes and perceptions of
current undergraduate tourism and hospitality students towards careers in the
industry. For this study, a sample of 132 undergraduate students from
hospitality and tourism management programs in was surveyed in research
location. SPSS (Version 21) was used to explore the data. Results shows that
the career factor items students have concerns over include job security, pay
and promotion, reasonable workload, and job-family balance offered within
the industry. Surprisingly, the most alarming finding to come out of this study
is that more than 40% of the tourism students are undecided and not willing to
work in the industry, which means the industry lose more than one third of the
qualified graduates. Implications for hospitality and tourism educators and
industry employers are discussed.
