Submitted in fulfillment of the requirements for the Masters Degree in Technology, (Tourism Management) in the Department of Hospitality and Tourism, Durban University of Technology, 2009. / There is a growing demand for professionally educated and trained staff in the
tourism sector. However, current literature reveals a significant disparity between the
tourism education provided by institutions and the skills required by the industry. A
major challenge facing tourism education institutions is the identification of industry
needs and requirements and the involvement of industry in curriculum design. The
aim of this research is to examine the education, skills and training required of
tourism employees and whether the provisions of higher education tourism courses
are adequately meeting industry needs. Identifying this „gap‟ will assist in improving
the development of tourism education programmes to meet the needs of industry. The
research examines the relevance of the tourisms qualification from three stakeholders‟
perspectives, namely, managers from the tourism sector, tourism graduate employees,
and tourism academics. Surveys, in the form of structured questionnaires, were used
to obtain information from the three groups.
The overall findings of the study revealed that gaps do exist in the tourism curriculum
according to the perceptions of stakeholder groups that participated in this study. The
recommendations are that closer collaboration is required between academics,
managers from the industry when designing tourism curriculum and also to sustain the
relevance of the curriculum to meet the needs of industry.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:dut/oai:ir.dut.ac.za:10321/481 |
| Date | January 2009 |
| Creators | Jugmohan, Sean |
| Contributors | McKenna, Sioux, Sucheran, Reshma |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
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