engleski

Assuring quality in tourism and hospitality management education

Major structural changes within tourism and hospitality industries have brought a need for new forms of management and new managerial skills. This paper argues that tourism and hospitality management education institutions must rethink the structure and content of their courses as well as teaching processes and methods to respond to the changing nature of managerial work and to improve job prospects of students. They shoud develop their programs to more adequately reflect the interdisciplinary character of tourism and hospitality management. The paper first explores the issues of quality assurance in tourism and hospitality management education as an important instrument to meet these demands. Special attention is paid on the question of how the concepts of Total Quality Management and ISO 9000 (the international standard for quality management) can best be applied to higher education institutions in tourism and hospitality management. Subsequently, a comparative analysis of degree programs in tourism and hospitality management in colleges and universities in the USA and Europe is presented. Such an analysis forms the basis for a discussion of problems surrounding the efforts for international harmonization of tourism and hospitality management education. Finally, the conclusions and recommendations underscore the need for and usefulness of soundly grounded approach to the assurance of quality and international standards (flexible) in higher education institutions in tourism and hospitality management.

management of quality; process; human resource; education

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