Work-Integrated Learning in the informal hospitality sector with a focus on Street Food Enterprises

Hospitality education increasingly relies on work-integrated learning (WIL) to connect classroom knowledge with professional practice. Yet workplace exposure does not alone guarantee the development of professional judgement capabilities amongst the students. Students may encounter unexpected situations; however, they receive support from superiors whenever needed. This conceptual paper addresses that problem by examining street food enterprises as informal knowledge environments in which uncertainty, resource constraints, customer interaction and immediate operational consequences are concentrated within everyday work. Drawing on experiential learning, reflection and informal workplace learning, the paper synthesizes literature to identify six interconnected learning situations such as market sensing; procurement and inventory judgement; pricing and financial decision-making; customer service and communication; operational adaptability and problem-solving and entrepreneurial judgement. Building on this, the paper develops a conceptual framework in which the educational value of informal workplace participation depends on the interaction of situational complexity, learner participation, consequential feedback, structured reflection and academic integration. Street food is therefore not proposed as inherently superior to formal hospitality placements, but as a complementary context and further aligning with the framework with India’s National Education Policy 2020 and subsequent UGC guidelines on internships and community engagement, it contributes to theory and practice by showing how students can learn not just from the workplace, but from the situations they face there. It shows how informal work settings can help students develop professional judgement through real-world challenges.