Student Perspectives on the Quality of Hotel Management Internships

TLDR

Internships are a common educational component for hotel management students, yet empirical research on their quality remains scarce, despite the importance of aligning academic institutions, students, and employers. The study aimed to compare students’ pre‑placement expectations with post‑placement satisfaction across internship issues and examine how demographic factors influence these differences. Using a student‑centered survey, the authors ranked expectations and satisfaction for selected internship issues, calculated differences, and analyzed associations with demographic characteristics. Results showed students rated internship issues higher than those of academic institutions or employers, significant pre‑to‑post differences, demographic variations, and highlighted the need to improve internship programs.

Abstract

ABSTRACT Internships have been widely used as an educational component for hotel management students. Despite the importance of internships, there has been limited empirical research in the academic literature on the quality of internships for hotel management students. The three stakeholders, academic institutions (educators), students, and organizations (employers) are important elements in the success of internships. From the viewpoint of students, this study examined the ranking of the level of expectation before placement and satisfaction after placement of selected internship issues, the differences between satisfaction and expectations, and the relation between these differences and demographic characteristics. Upon completion of the internships, it was found that the ranking of student issues was relatively higher than of academic institutions or organization issues. In addition, it was found that the differences on all issues before and after placement were significant. Finally, there were also differences concerning a few issues among the demographic groups. This study concludes that programs need to be improved to make internships successful. Although the study is based on research in Korea, it is argued that suggestions and discussions of the selected internship issues may be potentially applicable to hotel management internships in other countries.