Student profile and perceptions of hospitality management education : universities in South Africa

Abstract

This study utilized student respondents from two universities in South Africa and analysed their perceptions of their hospitality management education, and then established relationships between their profiles and responses. A structured questionnaire survey of 184 hospitality management students provided the data for analyses. A greater number of students surveyed did not select hospitality as their first-choice study programme. However many of them tended to be satisfied with their study, and wished to recommend hospitality management education to their friends and relatives, and planned to remain and work in the hospitality sector over the long-term. This study also ascertained that students’ who have positive attitudes towards hospitality management and the sector, are mostly those that selected hospitality management as their first-choice study and then females were also in the majority. Students are generally concerned that their study curriculum is somewhat inadequate to address their study needs, and they need more time to be allocated to the core hospitality courses.This paper also calls on institutions of higher learning who admit students into hospitality management courses, to place preference on those students who originally preferred to study hospitality management as they will clearly be more dedicated to their preferred career option. Greater emphasis should also be placed on female students’ education and more support should be provided for them, as the hospitality sector continues to be dominated by female employees.