ATTRIBUTES OF TOURISM GRADUATES: COMPARISON BETWEEN EMPLOYERS' EVALUATION AND GRADUATES' PERCEPTIONS

The tourism industry requires that increasing attention be paid not only to the quality of products and services but also to the quality of the human resources that constitute one of its major assets, since tourism is essentially a people-centered service industry. As such, a high-quality skilled workforce will ensure greater competitiveness and innovation, improved job prospects, repeat tourist visits, and economic growth in South Africa. This study aims to establish how tourism graduates perceived their abilities in terms of knowledge and skills and how the tourism industry evaluated tourism graduates' actual abilities in terms of knowledge and skills within the tourism industry. The researchers adopted a sequential, explanatory mixed-method that entails combining quantitative and qualitative methods. The researchers conducted a quantitative survey of a purposive sample of 561 managers, supervisors, and owners of tourism industry establishments, as well as tourism graduates exposed to the industry and those working in the tourism industry. Semistructured interviews were also conducted with 12 participants who were purposively selected. This study found that the tourism industry experiences graduates as being comfortable with technology, having a professional appearance, as well as outgoing-their three top actual abilities. However, graduates were perceived to lack entrepreneurial skills. In addition, work experience, negotiation skills, and career planning were among the lowest ranked actual abilities of tourism graduates. Actual knowledge and skills gaps indicate a lack of the educational expertise required, as it underpins the curriculum in a tourism qualification and adds extensive value to the tourism industry when recruiting, training, and developing staff.