What do hospitality undergraduates learn in different countries? An international comparison of curriculum

Abstract

Hospitality curriculum plays an important role in hospitality education and impacts the quality of the workforce entering the growing hospitality industry. From the top hospitality undergraduate programs worldwide, this study selected 36 programs from the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia as the study sample. Curriculum related information was collected from the institutions’ websites, including 620 undergraduate hospitality core courses. Content analysis generated a new 2-dimension course typology consisting of six categories of industry foci and 11 categories of topical areas. Chi-square and correspondence analysis were employed to compare the hospitality curricula across the three countries. The results indicated that hospitality curricula in the three countries had both different industry foci and topical areas. The study then provided practical suggestions on how to develop an international hospitality curriculum standard to prepare hospitality graduates for the globalized hospitality industry.