Feedback from Students on Career Opportunities in Tourism: A Cognitive Research Approach

In order to learn different techniques of tourism, students acquire different knowledge and skills, but also develop critical opinions, seek more and more information and knowledge from different perspectives. The demands of the labor market, together with the competences acquired during studies, foster students’ critical thinking. Through providing feedback, students’ opinions can serve as confirmation of the effectiveness of acquiring empirical and practical knowledge in higher education institutions. The aim of this study is to investigate opinions and expectations of students of Faculty of Hotel Management and Tourism about employment opportunities in the tourism industry, after completing their formal education. The authors conducted a quantitative study analyzing the responses of two groups of students (first-year students and fourth-year students) of the University of Kragujevac, Faculty of Hotel Management and Tourism in Vrnjačka Banja, Serbia. The results indicate that students primarily value employment opportunities in tourism when they involve managerial or leadership positions. Furthermore, while some students express readiness to accept any tourism-related job after graduation, they also advise prospective students to carefully reconsider pursuing higher education in tourism. The results will be very useful for universities (deans, administrators, and other) and future creators of the educational policy of the subject research, but also of wider scope.