One hundred forty-nine hospitality and culinary programs located in the U.S. and 49 hospitality and culinary programs located in other countries were examined to identify the differences of nutrition topics taught and teaching methods/resources used in undergraduate hospitality management and culinary programs.

This study focused on the hotel front office management course and how this course and related topics were taught in hospitality management programs. The results of the study can guide faculty in developing and expanding the hotel front office management course, related textbooks and teaching resources to best prepare students to meet the future needs of the lodging industry.

When asked to identify what characteristics are needed to fulfill an entry level management position in their companies, recruiters replied they were looking for someone “good”. When asked why they are enrolled in a 4 year hospitality program, a student may say to acquire a “good” job. The purpose of this study was to investigate the word “good” as it relates to hospitality industry recruiters in fulfilling an entry-level management position, as well as the hospitality management students perspective of “good” related to acquiring an entry level management position upon graduation from a four year hospitality degree program. This study investigated characteristics, skills, experience, and education of an entry-level manager, as defined by hospitality industry recruiters and hospitality students as “good.” There are opportunities to ensure that development is relevant and valued by both organization and students, through greater understanding of which competencies the industry recruiter is looking for in a “good” entry-level manager. Examples of good practice that enable development of existing talent should be published, in order that industry, academia and college graduates can learn from each other. Industry will ultimately determine the strengths and weaknesses of each four year hospitality degree program, based on whether or not they are able to recruit “good” entry-level managers from the program’s graduates.

The purpose of this study is to develop a better understanding of the industry employment intentions of the undergraduate freshmen majoring in tourism and hospitality management, their motivation for choosing these programs, and the relationship between their industry employment intentions and their motivation as well as demographic profiles. The 1140 undergraduate freshmen who were enrolled in the tourism and hospitality management programs at Shanghai's 13 higher educational institutions in the fall of 2013 were recruited to participate in the study. In the pilot study, 244 students among 250 recruited completed the survey developed by the researcher using Self-determination Theory as the theoretic framework. In the formal study, 685 out of 890 students completed the modified survey. Data analysis techniques included descriptive statistics, one-way between-subjects factor ANOVA, and multiple regression. Results of the study showed that: (1) on average, students' motivations for choosing a tourism and hospitality program were slightly above a moderate level of autonomy; (2) students' intentions to find job placements in the tourism and hospitality industry after graduation were at a moderate level; (3) there were significant differences among students majoring in tourism and hospitality management from the three different tiers of higher educational institutions regarding their family SES, motivations for choosing tourism and hospitality programs, and industry employment intentions; (4) among students' demographics, gender, family SES, and tier of higher educational institutions were significant predictors of their industry employment intentions, though only explaining 4.0% of the variance in students' industry employment intentions; (5) degree of autonomy of students' motivation for choosing their academic programs was a significant predictor of their industry employment intentions, explaining 15.3% of the variance in students' industry employment intentions; (6) degree of autonomy of students' motivation in choosing their academic programs was still a significant predictor of their industry employment intentions after controlling for demographics, leading to a 15.2% increase in explained variance; and (7) the degree of autonomy of students' motivation in choosing their academic programs and their demographics combined predicted 19.2% of their industry employment intentions. Implications for researchers, educators, policy makers and industry, as well as recommendations for further study, were discussed.