POTENTIAL CONSEQUENCES OF WORKING AND STUDYING TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY: THE CASE OF STUDENTS' BURNOUT

Nowadays an increasing number of tourism and hospitality students (T&H) decide to work during their study time. It results from many reasons, such as a necessity to possess and develop practical skills and abilities, to gain job experience, to earn money and support themselves financially, etc. Working in the T&H industry is characterized by long, irregular and unsocial hours, night and weekend schedules, or having to deal with heavy workload and stress. All these demands of working in T&H may interfere with students' academic life and can be reflected in their fatigue, tiredness and strain when studying or attending classes. This study develops and tests a research model that investigates the relationships between time workload experienced by working students and their exhaustion from their studies. Additionally, an attempt was made to answer the question whether the reasons why young people decide to work while studying may have any consequences for their feeling of study exhaustion, as one of the dimensions of students' burnout. This study was conducted among tourism and hospitality (T&H) students who, at the time of the research, were both studying and working in T&H. It means that only students with current working experience took part in this study. A questionnaire survey was conducted to elicit responses concerning students' work, their attitudes toward the undertaken studies and their socio-demographic characteristics. 121 questionnaires were analyzed in this study. The findings revealed that there are positive and significant relationships between time workload experienced by working students, reflected in a number of days per week at work and a number of hours per day at work, and the students' exhaustion. The results show that only earning money to cover the living expenses positively and significantly relates to students' exhaustion. Noteworthy, in the case of these respondents, having some kind of pressure to work (to cover the living expenses) may put a particular strain on their successful management of their work and student roles. Implications of the results are discussed, and a suggestion for future research is provided.