Multidisciplinary approach in the curriculum development: a case in a hospitality and tourism program in Jakarta, Indonesia

The new status of hospitality and tourism education as an independent discipline in 2008 has marked a new phase in hospitality and tourism higher education in Indonesia. However, there are still many issues that need attention from the Indonesian hospitality and tourism educators in order to enhance the image of this study. Facing the globalization and the rapid growth of tourism, Indonesian manpower must be skillful and professional in their respective jobs, in order to be able to compete successfully at national and international levels. As the world’s largest archipelago, Indonesia comprises of more than 300 ethnic groups and 200 languages. It makes Indonesia’s population very diverse in language, traditions, culture and religions. Many distinctive heritage sites, cultural landscapes and historic monuments and buildings can also be found in Indonesia. Despite all of the richness and uniqueness of the country, Indonesia still needs some efforts to ensure the success and long-term sustainability of the country's tourism development, since Indonesia’s tourism is one of the biggest contributors for the country's income and is growing higher than the country's economic growth. In order to achieve that, it must start from the education and training programs as the fundamental factor. Therefore, Indonesia, which relies on the tourism sector as one of the biggest revenue generators, should pay more interest to the development of hospitality and tourism study since qualified and competence workforce can only be obtained through a quality education and training system. One of the most important factors is the curriculum design, considering that hospitality and tourism study is multidisciplinary which exposed to several disciplines. The initial finding from the research is the need for developing curriculum that is designed to prepare students with communication skills, leadership and managerial skills, information technology, interpersonal skills, analytical skills and creative thinking skills that help students for leadership roles in a challenging and dynamic global hospitality and tourism environment. The data and information for this paper was collected from academic literature, websites, observation, author's previous papers and nominal group technique (NGT)