Tourism Education And Work Experience

touristry Education And Work Experience touristry teaching supply has slipd a rapid growth everywhere the past three decades (Micheal Morgan, 2004). It is a global phenomenon (Joseph Joseph, 2000) and the reason behind is to assure qualified and well trained employees on the touristry employment grocery store as demands keep on growing (M.S, Mohd Zahari, 2004). Both the goernment and the clannish field play an all-important(prenominal) role in the provision of touristry education at secondary and tertiary take. In Mauritius, touristry education undergoes a pyramid-type program system centre that touristry curricula is available a secondary programme, diploma, undergraduate and postgraduate programmes (Tertiary Education Commission, 2010).tourism education has been criticized for producing a tourism deceaseforce regardless of the quality. Quality workforce is of great govern as it plays a key role in organizations meeting customers expectations and blessedness (Evans Lindsay, 1999 Zeithaml et al., 1990). As students embark on tourism education programmes, it is expected that they abide by out with high quality knowledge, skills and the ability to meet the needs of the diligence (Goeldner and Ritchie, 2006 Harris and Zhao, 2004 Kok, 2000). Szambowski et al (2002) vomit up forward that significant emphasis should be placed on students gaining practical bang outside the classroom learning surround.However, growth in mountain passs for tourism education has raised an alarm about graduates having difficulties in finding a tourism pipeline in the coming decades. only when still, the in xtness needs the service of qualified and committed workforce to reach positively on customers contentment of experience.To meet the perseverance demand, work experience has been added to tourism curricula to equip students with the technical, operational and professional skills under the form of internship. Bullock, Gould and Hejmadi (2009, p. 482) cited that internships give birth enhanced their understanding of their own life choices, enabled the acquisition of transferable skills and provided a tangible link between theory and application. It is the tool around that gives students the opportunity to quiz passage possibilities in a realistic and real mankind environment and to explore a possible fit with a particular endeavour (Ka misfortunate, 2000 Waryszak, 1999).Several researches were carried out in accordance to work experience and its brilliance in the tourism and cordial reception perspective. It is essential tally to Getz (1994) to investigate how work experience changes side and erudition of students towards tourism and hospitality line of achievements. Demonte Vaden (1987) stated that the federal agent that had the greatest influence on students decision for a tourism c atomic number 18er was work experience. Further findings supposed that it may discourage students to enter the labor, alternatively of th em looking forward to pursue a tourism career (Busby, 2003 Boud, Solomon Symes, 2001).Tourism as an employerThere has been a rapid ascendancy of tourism to the worlds largest industry since the whole world continues to travel in a robust manner. Tourism as a sector has grown more(prenominal) rapidly than the primitive employment in the world economy (WTO, 2005 WTTC, 2005a). It is a service orient industry, based on a labor intensive production system, meaning that employees play a major role in the delivery of products and services that influence the overall tourism experience (Chellen Nunkoo).Statistics depict out that world tourism employment is estimated at 258.6 million year to date, which is approximately 8,3% of contribute employment and it is forecasted to increase by a division of 2.3% per annum, to reach a figure of 323.9 million by 2021. These channels include twain direct and substantiating employment (Justin Matthew Pang, 2010).Direct employment refers to the business enterprises helping in the creation of the melodic phrase itself while indirect jobs refer to businesses producing goods and services that assist in preparation visitors and travelers directly (Justin Matthew Pang, 2010). Direct employment in the tourism industry is 99 million to date and it is forecasted to increase to 120 million by 2021 (WTTC, 2007). In Mauritius, for the year 2011, total tourism employment is figured at 28 039 (Survey of employment and Earnings in large Establishments). Beside such statistics, Li (2007) put forward that on that point go out be a compactage of genius in the industry but this goes in contradiction to what Evans (1993) and Busby (1994) mentioned. They both put forward that the trend on increasing application for tourism related courses will accordly, result in a surplus of graduates on the tourism labor market.Tourism has proved to be a major employer and contributor to the world economy. But still, the tourism industry is being cri ticized for creating miserable skilled and low paid jobs with low satisfaction, high level of rung turnover, waste of trained personnel and limited scope for forwarding (Kusluvan and Kusluvan, 2000 Chellen and Nunkoo, 2010 Richardson, 2008 Richardson 2009 Roney and -ztin, 2007). such(prenominal) critics give rise to one of the major challenge of the industry which is to pull out and retain qualified and motivated staff.Employers across the world, whether large or small, face the same challenge attracting and retaining people with the right skills and personal strengths and attributes to deliver a quality experience to tourists. It is a sensible issue for the industry as the tourism sector depends much on people (Baum, 1999). One of the reasons wherefore thither is such a need for people is because of the nature of its leaf node services and also its late adoption of technology and refreshfulfangled forethought process (Bull, 1995). This global phenomenon of attracting and r etaining qualified workforce was once an isolated possibility for some markets but it has made its way through, to the whole world industry.Although there is much literature about tourism, there is very a couple of(prenominal) addressing students perspective and perception to kick upstairs a career in the industry (Roney and -ztin, 2007). like a shot that the phenomenon is widely spread, the need to investigate on the issue is becoming more and more important for the whole tourism universe. According to Chellen and Nunkoo (2010), this would be reformative to get a clear view of the status of tourism jobs in the human resources planning process for the tourism sector. While work on tourism and hospitality workforce ontogenesis programs, knowing tourism job status is deemed loaning more accuracy for the preparation of inline strategies. Human imaginativeness plans focuses on the employment needs of large international tourism organization, especially in hospitality, neglect ing how students perceive tourism as an employer. It is necessary for tourism and hospitality providers to attend to one of their most precious assets, namely, their human resource, if they want to be competitive on the marketplace. In fact it has been argued that without employees having a positive view towards their work, there is minimal chance for the organization to achieve customer satisfaction and loyalty, thus an advantage over competitors (Rosentbluth, 1991 Zeithaml Bitner, 1996).Various researchers have been questioning the indisposition of many students to embark themselves in a career in the tourism and hospitality industry. They started to investigate in secondary and tertiary institutions, where the potential new recruits are put in. Students from secondary schools were those who were the least exposed to experience in the tourism industry. Ross (1994) conducted a research in a secondary school in Australia and results showed that they had high level of amour in w orking at counselling level the tourism industry. Further researches were carried out at tertiary level as well as vocational institutions. Barron and Maxwell (1993) studied the perception of new and continuing students at Scottish higher education institutions and found that while students recognized the career opportunities attached to the tourism and hospitality industry, the majority could non foresee a long-term career in the industry. This is further confirmed by Johns and McKechnie, (1995) who stated that 50% of students choose careers out of the industry upon completion of their studies. Richardson (2008) research on Australian students revealed that more than 50% of tourism and hospitality undergraduate students were already contemplating careers outside the industry. According to Richardson (2009) the students look for job in more remunerative sectors upon graduation. Bloome (2006) cited that many students who embark on a tourism and hospitality curriculum do not join t he tourism and hospitality industry upon graduation. Students complained not having the opportunity to develop managerial skills in tourism jobs according to Purcell Quinn (1995) while Casado (1992) investigated the basic expectations of students in the tourism and hospitality sector, and found their expectation to be fairly realistic before graduation. Students helplessness to integrate the industry for work result in wastage of trained and experient personnel and above all, high staff turnover (Doherty, Guerrier, Jamieson, Lashley Lockwood, 2001 Jenkins, 2001 Pavesic Brimer, 1990 Zacerreli, 1985).According to Kusluvan (2001), it is important to understand the attitude of students in order to gain an insight as to why many of them are disinclined to join the line or choose to leave the industry after a relatively short period. In order to understand this, Kusluvan (2003), states that it is important to see the perspectives of students who are soon pursuing a tourism and hospi tality curriculum and those who have graduated. For the decide of this research, only those ongoing a tourism curriculum will be questioned.Students opinion about jobs in the tourism sector get them to be reluctant in majoring a career in the tourism industry. Gu et al (2007) conducted a research in China and the students claimed that career development in the tourism and hospitality industry was not sufficiently promising. Furthermore, according to a research in China (Jiang and Tribe, 2009), students classified tourism job a short-lived profession. They were not committed to develop a career in the field where the nature of the tourism job itself, clearly affects their decision. Unlikely, there are actually, six million people employed in the tourism and hospitality industry in China. The statistics for tourism job in the hoidenish is forecasted to rise by one million in the next ten years.Students commitment to tourism jobs is what determines the prosperity of the sector on a widely distributed avenue. As per Roney and -ztin (2007), students commitment is one of the major factors that shape the image of the tourism industry positively. Through exposure to the industry, tourism and hospitality students become easily less interested in selecting tourism and hospitality as their first-year choice for a career (Kusluvan Kusluvan, 2000 Getz, 1994). Students compare their expected career goals to the offer of the tourism industry, and as they notice the negative gap between those two, their interest for the industry deteriorates. Their images of the industry include poor treatment of staff, little or no training given, and effort outweighing rewards. For students who choose tourism education as first choice and having a clear view of what they will be facing in reality, their attitude towards working in the industry are positive (Lu and Adler, 2009). Those who embark on a tourism education trek without realistic knowledge of the career opportunities and wor king conditions, claim that they would have not done so if they had a proper career guidance and penchant right from the start at secondary level (Roney -ztin, 2007). Hence according to Kusluvan and Kusluvan, proper measures like efficient career guidance and orientation, written interrogation supplemented by interviews, psychometric tests like personality and service orientation tests, should be adopted to reduce uncertainties of future tourism students about tourism job. nigh research pertaining to students perception and attitude towards the tourism industry end up stating that tourism students or fresh graduates had a negative image of the sector as an employer. Kusluvan Kusluvan certified his works by evidence that students have an disapproving evaluation towards different dimensions of working in the tourism industry. According to Getz (1994), the percentage of people who considered the hospitality attractive decreased from 43% to 29% over the periods 1978 1992. This rep resents a nearly half percentage decrease in the statistics. nigh hospitality graduates have been found to believe that a number of alien factors, such as poor working conditions, high pressure, long working hours, and a lack of motivation, training programs, and career opportunities, may contribute to poor employment aspirations, high turnover rates, and the wastage of educational investment (e.g., Kang and Gould, 2002 Jenkins, 2001). This should be a cause for concern since attitudes are considered to be effective callors of intention and conduct (Ajzen and Fishbein, 1980), and negative attitude would make students less willing to look for tourism jobs.Several books and journals have been published on tourism, but very few were to address the issue of tourism students perception towards the tourism and hospitality industry in Mauritius. To enlighten the situation in Mauritius, this paper seeks to identify the factors influencing students perception and attitude towards furtheri ng a career in the tourism sector in Mauritius. Though there is a lack of such literature pertaining to developing countries, the paper will try to adapt the research to the country which is a developing one and as well the fastest growing region in global tourism (Chellen Nunkoo).This paper aims at studying the attitude and perception of tourism undergraduate students towards a career in the tourism industry in Mauritius. To further understand how attitude and perception helps to predict ones intention to integrate the industry, this paper will make use of the scheme of planned behaviour (Ajzen, 1991), which predicts behaviour by intention. Then, to strictly measure the students attitude and perception, an instrument of 9 dimensions adapted from that developed and tested by Kusluvan Kusluvan (2000) will be used. The 9 dimensions are classified as nature of work, mixer status, industry person congeniality, physical working condition, pay and fringe benefits, co-workers, promoti on opportunity, managers and commitment. Two likely studies have been carried out in Mauritius by Chellen and Nunkoo (2010) and a University of Mauritius tourism graduate (2011). However this paper, in addition to the 9 dimensions of Kusluvan and Kusluvan (2000), bring up the issue of work experience for differentiation, as a tool capable of shaping students attitude and perception towards a career in the industry upon graduation.