Employability Skills: the Needs of Tourism Industry versus the Performance of Graduates

The 24th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI 2020) : Proceedings, Vol.3 2020
Agita Doniņa, Inga Lapiņa

Higher education institutions (HEI) are facing new challenges due to the substantial shift of higher education towards employability. Employability is a broad term which is understood as the ability to find and keep employment. Ability depends on several aspects, where the competency acquired stands as one of the most important characteristics. Conversely, skills, particularly employability skills, represent one of competency forming facets, the importance of which is growing steadily, not least in tourism. Despite the growth in importance, there still are skills which potential employees lack. Self-organizing capacity and problem solving are the skills which are named most often in this context. The research has been developed in Latvia by conducting two surveys – a survey of tourism industry company managers and a survey of HEI tourism field graduates. The assessment of skills was performed for 67 employability skills divided into 8 groups. The theoretical background is based on the literature review. The comparison of survey results indicates a significant discrepancy between the expectations of tourism industry companies from their employees and the skills developed by graduates during their study process. In 64% of cases, the employability skills required by the industry superseded the actual performance of graduates.

Atslēgas vārdi
employability skills, importance, performance, tourism industry, graduates
Hipersaite
http://www.iiis.org/CDs2020/CD2020Summer/papers/SA401ZI.pdf

Doniņa, A., Lapiņa, I. Employability Skills: the Needs of Tourism Industry versus the Performance of Graduates. No: The 24th World Multi-Conference on Systemics, Cybernetics and Informatics (WMSCI 2020) : Proceedings, Amerikas savienotās valstis, Orlando, 13.-16. septembris, 2020. Winter Garden, Florida: International Institute of Informatics and Systemics (IIIS), 2020, Vol. 3, 48.-53. lpp. ISBN 978-1-950492-45-9.

Publikācijas valoda
English (en)