The role of tourism and hospitality companies in ensuring an effective internship process

Tourism and hospitality education has only been provided in Latvia as a separate curriculum relatively recently. According to legislation, the curriculum should consist of study courses, internships and the state exam. Cooperation between all stakeholders is crucial in order to achieve the goal of internship – to increase students’ knowledge and to develop skills in the study area chosen. The purpose of this study is to explore cooperation between higher educational establishments and companies targeted at enhancing students’ employability skills. The survey was conducted in Latvia by addressing managers of 154 tourism and hospitality industry companies in 2014. The findings showed that only 51.30% of the companies plan interns’ job assignment during internship on the basis of an internship programme and in 35.06% of the cases higher educational establishments do not contact internship companies for feedback at all. This means that, despite the importance of internships in developing students’ skills, cooperation among all stakeholders does not proceed in the best possible manner. It is suggested to improve cooperation at all stages of internship – at the planning, organisational and control stages