Hospitality higher education talent management programme, step: a steppingstone to develop future hospitality leaders

The hospitality industry has shown remarkable growth in the Asia Pacifi c region. As the industry grows, it requires human capital and skills to cater to the growing market. Out of 2023,338 million jobs in tourism worldwide, two-thirds of them alone are in Asia. The need for skilled employees to address this growth has become even more important in the competitive global environment. Higher education institutions are often considered unable to prepare students for future employment, and leadership positions in the tourism industry. Recently, several initiatives have been developed to bridge the gap between academia and industry. This paper reviews an employment programme developed in Malaysia by a private university. The STudent Employability Programme (STEP) was created in partnership with global hotel groups. STEP programme is a strategy to link students and engage them in the recruitment, retention and talent management within hospitality organizations. This paper fi rst reviews the literature, and then discusses the implementation of the STEP programme since its inception in 2011 based on the interview of STEP stakeholders (faculty, students and industry partners). The fi ndings show positive feedback emphasizing the commitment and implementation of an integrated and strategic approach to human resource management. Industry and faculty share the belief that human resource management is the primary source of competitive advantage and an essential asset to decrease shortage of supply of manpower. Developing the awareness of value of such employment programmes would be benefi cial to alleviate the current mismatch between graduates capabilities and industry expectations. However the capacity to innovate and develop original programmes of employment of future graduate remains the exception rather than the norm