Objectives/Goals

Many times when I encounter students attending courses at ITS, I often get the impression that they feel they have taken ITS as the ‘easy option’ or an ‘alternative option’, without really knowing what it involves. Many of them do not know much about the tourism industry or what their options are.

I have two main objectives:

1. I would like to determine whether ‘School Leavers’ are given adequate guidance regarding ITS as a career choice.
2. Whether the entry process at ITS ensures that students are given the correct advice and selected for the right reasons.

At the end of the project, I intend to make some recommendations that I think may help in safeguarding Malta’s future with regards to the Tourism Industry.

Abstract

Recognizing the importance of the Tourism Industry in Malta; does the education system give enough importance to this industry to enable students to consider the ITS as a career path?

One thing that is evident to me is that many of the students who are attending ITS are not fully aware of what working in the hospitality industry entails. Many of them think they do, however, after a short time at ITS, they discover the real ‘Hospitality Industry’ and some of them do not like it. There are a number of dropouts because of this, however there are also many students who stay even though they have already decided that they do not want a career in the industry, either because they cannot or do not want to repay their stipend or they are under pressure from home to continue.

A percentage of students are attending ITS because they did not ‘make the grade’ for their first choice so they took ITS as a last alternative. In this instance the student may be unmotivated and disinterested which will become evident during their work phase and give a poor reputation to ITS.

I believe that there should be a way to encourage more students to follow a career in the hospitality industry. There is a common misconception that people who cannot do anything else go into the hospitality industry as low paid manual labour. However many people still do not realise that this is a highly professional industry that offers considerable career flexibility.

Keywords:

Tourism Industry, ITS, Tourism courses.