Perceptions of the tourism and hospitality industry by Singapore polytechnic hospitality students: An exploratory study

Many Singapore polytechnic students are not keen to join the hospitality line even after being enrolled in a 3-year hospitality program. Many students find the nature of the job too stressful and strenuous. Students have also cited reasons such as long working hours, shift work, dealing with unpredictable circumstances in the job environment and having lower starting remuneration as compared other industries (K. Ong, personal communications, June 16, 2010). Other perceived qualitative reasons that have been given by students for not joining the industry would be the semi-professional nature of the hospitality industry as compared to other industries such as education, law, engineering and business-related industries (Khan, 1992). Students especially from a semi-traditional Asian-Singapore context are not encouraged to join the hospitality line because their parents do not support their decision as the jobs in this industry is seen as one which is ‘servitude’ and have little prospects of promotion from rank-and-file. The polytechnics also play a major role in influencing the choice of career of their students through their faculty, curriculum, resources and links to the industry. Therefore Singapore hospitality schools would need to manage student expectations prior to and during the course of studies to encourage students to stay within the industry after graduation. Industrial practitioners must also re-look at their job environment, practices, wages and welfare treatment of their staff so that they can retain and grow human capital to prevent a dearth of manpower in the hospitality and tourism industry