An Empirical Study of the Challenges Facing Hospitality Master's Programs: a Hotel Industry Perspective

Abstract

As master's-level hospitality programs continue to grow in size and number, concerns still remain over the acceptability and recognition of such programs by the hotel industry. In order to understand the challenges faced by these programs, it was considered appropriate to conduct an empirical investigation that would reveal the gap between perceptions of corporate hotel executives and master's level hospitality students. The study reported in this article investigated the career path, educational background, and perceptions of 106 corporate hotel executives compared to the educational preparation, anticipated career path, and perceptions of 130 master's- level students in the United States. There were significant differences between the career-paths of hotel executives and the anticipated career-paths of students. Students appeared to have unrealistic expectations of securing corporate-level positions immediately upon graduation when executives' experiences are that most of them started their careers at t...