Abstract:

The Vietnamese tourism employment sector is lacking professional and generic skills. Tourism training programs are being questioned over their responses to the sector’s requirements. Drawing on qualitative and quantitative data from a triad of stakeholders: (1) academics in VET and HE tourism training institutions, (2) human resource managers, and internship mentors in tourism companies, and (3) recent graduates and current final-year students in tourism training courses; this paper addresses educational issues concerning tourism graduate employability skills. The results show contradictions in the participant stakeholder perspectives. Tourism companies are not satisfied with graduate outcomes. However, the HE institutions counter this criticism and argue support for equipping graduates with essential skills through both curricular and extra-curricular activities. Yet the students attribute their skill acquisition mostly to external factors. The findings add empirical insights from a developing country on the current debate concerning stakeholder roles in equipping graduates with employability skills in tourism.