Identifying the Most Important Managerial Competencies Needed by the Tourism Industry in Egypt from Tourism and Hospitality Faculties Students: A Delphi Study

Abstract

Identifying the most important required managerial competencies by tourism and hospitality industry experts is essential for developing tourism and hospitality students' managerial competencies so as to meet the industry needs. Hence, the study used a Delphi technique to explore the points of view of tourism and hospitality industry experts in Egypt regarding the most managerial competencies required by tourism and hospitality graduates to be possessed and the tourism education should focus on. The study included a panel of 60 experts representative of two subpopulations, (30 experts in the tourism and hospitality industry, and 30 experts of Human resources managers and learning and developing managers) who were invited to participate in a consensus study involving two rounds of a Delphi study. 53 out of 60 experts completed all the Delphi rounds using an online questionnaire. The Statistical Package for Social Sciences (SPSS) version 26 was used to analyze collected data. The result of the study showed that the respondents rated 13 managerial competencies out of 22 as very important to extremely important. Based on the results, it is recommended that the tourism higher education institutions should focus on these competencies during designing the curriculum or training programs.