Influence of COVID-19 to the Student’s Career Selection in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry

Students' career preferences are an important issue to various stakeholders: to university administration, career counselors, higher education policy makers, as well as to human resource managers in companies. Students, whose career preferences and goals are fulfilled, are better and more highly motivated employees. In this study, survey questionnaires were collected from 200 students enrolled in Hospitality and Tourism Management Course. The present study compared career preferences of 200 1st year to 2nd year Hospitality and Tourism Management students. The main objective of this study is to explore the influence of Covid-19 on the student’s career selection in the hospitality and tourism industry. The study also used descriptive quantitative research. This kind of data collection provided the researchers with rich information that can be used for future research as well. It can also be used for developing hypotheses or your research objective. The findings implied that despite the pandemic, there are still a lot of reasons such as personal choice, opportunities to travel abroad, and trust to the department handling the course which are extremely influential for students which pushed them to pursue or enroll in a Tourism and Hospitality Management course. It was concluded that the extent of influence of the negative impact of COVID-19 in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry in the career preference of the respondents is very influential such as having stress and mental breakdown, concerns about future career, and difficulties on learning. The researchers recommend that the universities need to provide additional career planning programs for 1st year and 2nd year students, for them to become more ready. Students need to know and trust the university's process in terms of education through online because the universities are already adapting into a new mode of teaching and they have the process of creating training programs that require the involvement of the administration, faculty, staff, students, parents, and other stakeholders that enable the institution to move forward, managing and mitigating risks successfully. Hence, the university is implementing the continuous process of consultation, feed backing, and intensive monitoring as important ingredients for the plans to be successfully implemented and to be more effective in this time of Covid-19