Hospitality Students and their Motivation to Study
Introduction
Humans satisfy some of their needs by taking time to visit the best hotels, resorts, and many other recreational facilities away from their homes. Essentially, this forms the principle of operation in the hospitality industry. The industry makes money by ensuring the provision of hospitable services to the numerous people who seek comfort and time to relax away from their daily monotonous lives (Kim, Guo, Wang, & Agrusa, 2007). Similarly, business individuals need hospitable services while on business trips. Consequently, the hospitality industry covers hotels, resorts, restaurants, bars, and travel and tourism, just to mention but a few.
Undoubtedly, the hospitality industry makes significant contribution to the growth of any economy. Statistical reports indicate that in most countries, it contributes approximately 8% to the job market. However, this figure is high in countries that are major tourist destinations. For instance, countries such as Mexico, Spain, Germany, and many others, have tourism as a significant foreign exchange earner. In the American continent, Canada is the third country that boasts of high international tourist visits per year (Cerasoli, Nicklin, & Ford, 2014). The United States and Mexico are in first and second positions respectively. In the year 2015 alone, Canada received approximately 18 million international tourists. Notably, this was a 12% increase from the previous years.
It is imperative to rank the hospitality industry among the most indispensable industries in every economy. Industries that make significant contribution to the economy receive exceptional treatment from governments. For instance, they ensure proper training and education to equip citizens with the necessary knowledge. Conversely, the economy ensures the provision of incentives on crucial career lines to ensure that a country possesses adequate qualified personnel. Similarly, since the hospitality industry is equally important for the development of any given country, and particularly the Canadian economy, there is an urgent need to determine the rate of enrolment of students in this trade.
Justification
The Canadian economy relies on the hospitality industry as a means of foreign exchange and an essential contributor to the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Consequently, there is the need to determine the proportion of students willing to pursue different career lines in this industry. Research indicates that scores of students in the past had low regard for the hospitality industry (Lu, & Adler, 2009). In fact, it is one of the areas that received significantly low enrolments of students per annum. Markedly, this affected the quality of services provided in the hospitality industry (Chirkov, Vansteenkiste, Tao & Lynch, 2007). Worse still, owing to unqualified personnel, the industry experienced slow growth compared to others. Correspondingly, there is a need to determine the cause for this unprecedented fall in the number of students enrolling for hospitality courses.
Still, it is important to ascertain the varied attitudes of students towards hospitality as a course to correct the stereotypic views and increase the number of students’ enrolment in this area of career development (Lee, Kim, Lo, 2008). Sometimes, students perceive hospitality as a potential career line, but many believe that the industry mainly entails cooking for customers (Richardson, 2009). However, most male students in the United States think technological fields of study are the right careers to pursue as men (Deci & Ryan 2013). Because of these, and many other stereotypic views, the hospitality industry receives a minimal number of student enrolments.
Purpose
This research proposal will focus on the motivation for American students to study hospitality as Bachelor’s Degrees or Diplomas. Besides, it will present a quantitative analysis of relevant works on the area and cover topics on how students got to learn about the program. It will also determine any plans by students to work in the industry and whether the program will help them achieve their goals, choices, and expectations of the course. The research will furtjer explore the issues that affect study motivations for hospitality, contemporary issues relevant to the field, as well as students’ perspectives on the area in the context of cultural, social, and local hospitality course study policies. Moreover, the project will identify both opportunities and problems in student study motivation, analyze their causes and development, address the key issues noted, offer alternatives, and make appropriate recommendations that will include clear provisions for implementation. As such, these limitations form the basis for this research and help guide the researcher to achieve the objectives of this paper.
Literature Review
For many years, scholars have emphasized the importance of hospitality education. Notably, formal education is crucial to providing competent and skilled human resource. Schaller
(2013) defines career goals as the intent and willingness to engage in particular activities and produce outcomes. The expectation of outcome encompasses anticipated materialistic outcomes (such as salaries expected), expected social outcomes (such as the anticipated job positions), and the anticipated self-evaluative outcomes (personal expectations) (Schaller, 2013). Career goal are divided into two: choice content and performance goals. That said, individuals are motivated by performance goals to become successful in their areas of choice; while choice content goals, such as the intent to pursue a particular career path, motivate individuals to pursue vocational and educational options (Lu & Adler, 2009).
Ushida (2014) lists a broad range of career opportunities that are presented by hospitality courses. They include event planning and meeting, resorts and hotels, spa and wellness management, cruises, and airlines and other forms of transportation. The hospitality industry operates in a highly competitive setting and requires that students aspiring to be part of it develop a strong set of customer service skills and solid business-oriented mindsets. The competitive environment that the industry operates in now demands that the traditional hands-on skills and experience be replaced by a subtle combination of higher education and expertise for successful careers (Egger & Maurer, 2014). Training that focuses on business skills in hospitality has the advantage of skill transferability to other careers rather than the ones related to degrees. Graduates from this highly service-oriented career are more likely to have the upper hand in global markets.
Williams (2016) examines the size of the hospitality and tourism industries on the global scale. The World Tourism and Travel Council (2016) estimates that the hospitality and tourism industry accounts for 8% of the jobs in the world; hospitality has the highest potential for growth compared to other service industries. Williams also points out that with the annual tourism travel accounting for more than 840 million tourists annually, tourism has an impact on the social and economic aspects of life as it improves the quality of life and creation of sustainable jobs (Bagozii, 2010). As a rapidly growing and vast industry, the hospitality and tourism presents those ambitious students who enjoy working with people a vast array of opportunities.
An examination of studies on career goals and expectations in the fields of math, hospitality, and science reveals many continuing themes. They include the perception that students have long-term career goals and preferred functional areas. These studies indicate that factors such as expectations, motivated behavior, and career goals affect students’ career choices.
Other studies in the area have shortcomings too; they explored the general career expectations of college and university students, but failed to examine specific key indices of motivated behavior such as salaries, particular areas of interest, and expected job positions (Salih, & Zeynep 2000). Empirical research on the motivations, expectations, and goals of hospitality and tourism students in the American context is scarce (Ruan, Zhang & Leung, 2016). Few studies have addressed the perception that hospitality students have towards the industry, while a number of them reveal negative attitudes. There is the need to improve the attitudes of undergraduates by laying emphasis on career progress that is in line with the basic knowledge acquired in universities and colleges.
Methods
Research Design
This research is quantitative and focuses on measurable parameters in testing the hypothesis. Firstly, the premise of this study is that owing to negative perceptions and lack of motivation in the hospitality related careers, scores of students have opted to avoid this line of study. Alternatively, the null hypothesis asserts that negative perceptions and lack of motivation do not contribute to the decreased rate of enrollments in tourism and hospitality related careers. Subsequently, the research will quantify three striking aspects, namely, motivation, decision-making, and attitudes of students to test this hypothesis.
Population and Sampling
For a comprehensive and representative sample, the study will select a significant number of college students from different regions. A total number of 467 respondents will be identified for this study. As earlier mentioned, this figure will include individuals from different regions in Canada. Out of the 468, 50% will be female, while 50% will be male. Similarly, the sample will select students from different years.
Research Instruments and Procedures
The main research instrument in this study will be questionnaires that will have open-ended and close-ended queries. The different parameters will be ascertained by close-ended questionnaires, while open-ended questionnaires will determine bibliographic information.
Data Analysis Methods
The analysis methods to employ in this research will all be scientific. In the determination of different parameters, the research will employ the differential statistics. The analysis will include the calculation, variances, and correlation figures. This will help to prove whether these parameters significantly or insignificantly affect the number of students enrolled in hospitability colleges in Canada.
Schedule
The Gannt chart below presents the timeline for this research
| Activity | 1st week | 2nd week | 3rd week | 4th week | 5th week |
| · External motivation factors determination | |||||
| · Internal motivation factors determination | |||||
| · Determination of areas of interest | |||||
| · Determination of perceptions about the course | |||||
| · Measure of attitudes |
Budget
The budget for this study is as follows:
| Activity | Cost approximations ($) |
| External motivation factors determination | 150 |
| Internal motivation factors determination | 150 |
| Determination of areas of interest | 150 |
| Determination of perceptions about the course | 150 |
| Measure of attitudes | 150 |
Conclusion
Summing up, this research is of great importance as it helps to find out the reasons as to why many scholars opt to avoid hospitality courses in Canada, although the Hospitality and Tourism Industry is an important pillar of the Canadian economy. As earlier mentioned, Canada depends on tourism and hospitality as an important foreign exchange earner and it contributes a significant share to the country’s annual GDP (Lipnevich, Preckel, Roberts, 2016). As seen, several reasons lead to the minimal intakes of students in this field of study. As such, it is imperative to address them to increase the number of students that enroll in this course. That way, the country is bound to increase its productivity by exploiting the full potential of the tourism and hospitality industry.
References
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