Study on Motivation, Expectation and Perceptions towards tourism and Hospitality Management Education among Scholl Students in Southern province, Sri Lanka

Abstract

To enhance the service quality of the Tourism industry the government, introduce Tourism and Hospitality Education to the Post-secondary education under the Thirteen years guaranteed education program. However, Tourism industry faced a problem of retains educated persons within the industry. It is vital to investigate about tourism learners‟ attitudes and behavior to understand the problems and find solution for the betterment of the industry. Thus the main objective of the research study is to identify the major motivation, expectation, perception and students‟ preference in learning Tourism and Hospitality Education among Thirteen years guaranteed education following students. Research study conducted in southern province due to the high Tourism traffic occurring area in Sri Lanka. The research employed quantitative approach and use questionnaire as data collection tool. Among 227 number of population researcher derived 140 sample for the study. Further this study is conducted as survey research. Both Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) and Microsoft Excel used to analyze the data and derive a conclusion from the study. According to the analysis the major motivational factors to select Tourism and Hospitality education are willingness to work in this industry as well as prefer to provide best service to the guests. The students expectation aspect acquire operational knowledge in the industry as well as expected to these studies are affected to explore future career choices. Then major perceptions of the students are learning from well qualified teachers who can give appropriate answers for the student‟s questions. Further students‟ perspective they require more activities in tourism and Hospitality field than the theoretical aspect. Under the preferences category, students‟ future career choices are Hotel sector, travel agency fields. As well as the students preferred subjects are the Hotel management, Tourism management, Aviation studies etc. However, the findings are assisting to conclude the clear picture of the Tourism and Hospitality sector and its short comings and identifying the problems and investigating answers for the society.