A Study on Tourism Undergraduates’ Satisfaction on Internship Experience and Their Future Career Intention
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Date
2019
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Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Uva Wellassa University of Sri Lanka
Abstract
The national universities have integrated student internship experience in to the tourism and hospitality curricula, recognizing its importance for improving employability skills, developing knowledge and inculcating positive attitudes of the undergraduates. Hence, this study attempts to examine the satisfaction level of the tourism and hospitality undergraduates with the internship experience and its impact on their future career intention. A structured questionnaire was utilized to collect data from the undergraduates of Rajarata University of Sri Lanka, who have minimum two months internship experience. Random sampling technique was employed for data collection and a total of 56 were received for the final analysis out of 86 questionnaires distributed. Descriptive statistics have been used to analyse the level of satisfaction of undergraduates with regard to internship experience and regression analysis was employed to analyse the impact of internship experience on their future career intention. Training program, nature of work, supervisors, facilities, co-workers and future career intention are the concerned areas for this study. The dimensions used for this study are reliable at the level of 0.7. The result reveals that the undergraduates are satisfied with their internship experience in terms of all the dimensions excluding facilities provided by the training organizations and all the undergraduates intend to work in the industry after graduation. The finding also shows that the undergraduates’ satisfaction with respect to the training program and the nature of the work significantly impact on their intention to work in the tourism industry in the future. Hence, to attract the undergraduates to the industry after the graduation, it is advisable for the managers of the tourism and hospitality establishment to provide proper training during the internship period considering the factors such as proper orientation, on the job training, working hours, and workload.
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Keywords
Tourism Management, Hospitality Management, Human Resource Development