Going Virtual: The Impact of COVID-19 on Internships in Tourism, Events, and Hospitality Education

ABSTRACT

This study explored virtual internship practices and the adaptation to changes brought by the current COVID-19 pandemic crisis by interviewing a small group of interns and site supervisors to understand how virtual internships were practiced in the wake of COVID-19. The findings of the study provided several insights into virtual internships. Overall, just like the conventional fieldwork, well-planned and designed virtual internships could be an empowering learning experience that allows students to capitalize on the practical strengths while applying classroom learning experiences to actual management situations. The study also discussed the advantages and challenges of virtual internships perceived by the student interns. The implications of the study and suggestions for future research were addressed.

KEYWORDS:

• Virtual internships
• experiential education
• impact of COVID-19
• tourism and events education
• hospitality education

Acknowledgments

The authors would like to acknowledge those who participated in the interviews and the online survey. We would also like to thank the editors of this special issue of Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Education and the reviewers for their valuable comments. We truly believe that the comments helped improve our manuscript. We also want to thank our Graduate Research Assistant, Teresa Wu, for her assistance with transcripts and thoughtful comments.

Declaration Statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Additional information

Funding

No funding was provided to support this work.