Students’ Perceptions and Attitudes toward Working in the Tourism Industry in Egypt

This research examines the perceptions and attitudes of undergraduate tourism and hotel students toward different aspects of working in the tourism industry in Egypt .Four hundred and eighty students, from faculty of Tourism and Hotel Management, Helwan University, completed a questionnaire, containing three closed questions and multi-dimensional and multi-item attitude scale. The results generally show that undergraduate students who are studying tourism and hospitality in Egypt evaluated different aspects of working in the tourism industry unfavorably. It has been argued that the skills shortage within the Egyptian tourism and hotels industry will grow over the next coming years if problems are not addressed. Overall, the final findings covering aspects of commitment to the industry give a negative value to working in tourism. This highlights the need for the industry and educators to adopt tactics and strategies aimed at ensuring the potential employee are entering the industry upon graduation.  It is not possible to generalize the findings to other faculties of tourism and hotels, but the findings can be evaluated as a useful source of information regarding the perceptions and attitudes of the sampled tourism students in Egypt. The findings are of value for academicians, tourism professionals and also tourism students. This study concludes by offering some recommendations to the industry and educators relating to students’ expectations of their working environment in the tourism industry. Furthermore, the researcher identifies some limitations of this study and areas for further research.