Tourism graduate competencies: a tourism labour market perspective

One of the most important issues in the tourism industry is developing initiatives to improve revenues and business performance in the face of environmental uncertainty, particularly in developing countries. Universities must be able to provide the tourism sector with competent graduates able to perform their jobs efficiently. This raises questions such as what type of manpower is required in the tourism industry? and what competencies do universities need to develop and improve for their graduates to work successfully? This paper aimed to study tourism graduate competencies from the perspective of tourism labour market demand. Taking a qualitative analysis approach, the study was carried out in Ecuador with professionals working in a range of tourism businesses. The research data were collected from semi-structured interviews, using a question guide. The interviews were then analysed using thematic analysis. Findings indicate that ‘Professional and methodological competencies’ and ‘Social and communicative competencies’ are the most important competencies for the interviewees. Findings will enable allow higher education curriculum developers to compare and analyse their current student offer, with the aim of attaining an academic offer linking their programmes to the specific competencies that future tourism graduates need to acquire according to tourism labour market demand.