Industrial Information Technology Applications: Have Hospitality and Tourism Graduates Learned the Needed Skills?

Abstract

Hospitality and tourism educators have been emphasizing that it is their goal to train their students with the skills that are required by the industry. While previous studies have demonstrated a varied degree of success for Hospitality & Tourism Management (HTM) education to achieve this goal, there exist no prior studies to investigate the relationship of information technology (IT) education and industrial applications in the Hong Kong context. This paper describes a study that examined the university HTM graduates' perceived importance levels of IT skills in the workplace and at the university. Empirical evidence showed that there exist significant differences in several dimensions of IT skills acquired at the university and required at work. Suggestions are provided accordingly for HTM educators in postsecondary education institutes to follow in order to eliminate the mismatches.