Undergraduate Students' Attitudes towards Their Future jobs in the Tourism Sector: Challenges Facing Educators and Business

An appropriate choice of staff appears to be crucial for service organizations and their effectiveness, as employees are integral component of service products that play key role in shaping their quality. Because of the intangible nature of the tourism services, ppeople attitudes and behaviors during the service process strongly influence customer's service experience and their satisfaction. Therefore aattracting and keeping, well-qualified staff who will be able to provide outstanding customer service, should be perceived as of a high priority for every enterprise that aim to operate successfully on the tourism market. As a result much effort should be invested in understanding the potential factors that may influence tourism and hospitality students' attitudes toward working in the industry, the more that many of them change their career options and leave the industry after graduation. Thus the purpose of the study is to recognize the youth's attitudes towards their future career in the tourism sector and to identify potential obstacles towards working in the industry after graduation. Context of students' social backgrounds as well as their current work experience are also analyzed. The research was conducted in all the institutions of higher education in the Tri city in Northern Poland that offered tourism and hospitality courses and had students in their final year of study. Aquestionnaire survey was conducted to elicit responses concerning both attitudes to work and socio-demographic characteristics. Most of the respondents indicated that they would like to work in the tourism industry after graduation. However main obstacles to working in the sector have been identified. The research findings suggest that the career intentions of young people depend on the working experience of themselves and their families and friends. Additionally understanding of the nature of tourism work was also indentified as an important factor influencing students' working intentions in tourism. This research aims to fill in the gap in the literature and add a cognitive value to the labor market theory and its application in the tourism sector due to relatively insufficient research on the attitudes of prospective employees of the tourism and hospitality industry.