An Empirical Study of the Challenges Facing Hospitality Master's Programs: a Hotel Industry Perspective

As master's-level hospitality programs continue to grow in size and number, concerns still remain over the acceptability and recognition of such programs by the hotel industry. In order to understand the challenges faced by these programs, it was considered appropriate to conduct an empirical investigation that would reveal the gap between perceptions of corporate hotel executives and master's level hospitality students. The study reported in this article investigated the career path, educational background, and perceptions of 106 corporate hotel executives compared to the educational preparation, anticipated career path, and perceptions of 130 master's- level students in the United States. There were significant differences between the career-paths of hotel executives and the anticipated career-paths of students. Students appeared to have unrealistic expectations of securing corporate-level positions immediately upon graduation when executives' experiences are that most of them started their careers at the operations level. Educational preparations for these two groups differed significantly; students had a strong hospitality focus, while executives were from a more diverse educational background. There was very little agreement between executives and students concerning the areas of emphasis in hospitality master's programs. Among all hotel executives surveyed, only 40% were familiar with hospitality master's programs. Hotel executives preferred an MBA degree when selecting candidates in the areas of finance, human resources, and marketing, but they preferred a master's degree in hospitality for operations-related positions.