Restaurant Industry Case Study

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ABSTRACT. This study explored the perceptions of hospitality undergraduate students towards the restaurant industry as a career choice. One hundred and twenty-one students currently studying restaurant management (internship program) at Helwan University completed a questionnaire rating the importance of twenty factors in influencing their choice of career, and then the extent to which they believed the restaurant industry, as a career, offers these factors. The results revealed that students generally do not believe that a career in the restaurant industry will offer them the factors they find important, as many factors have been identified as being significantly different. The results also indicate that as students get further into their …show more content…

Despite the relative large number of hospitality educational institutions in Egypt, some restaurant operators have highlighted the issue of labour and skills shortages to fill the growing number of positions in this industry. For this reason, some major restaurant operators facilitated the development of specialized programs for restaurant management that include a type of internship in some hospitality educational …show more content…

When looking at the overall perceptions and attitudes of hospitality students, there is relatively little evidence that a comprehensive research has been conducted in this area.(25) A key study in this area found that some of the factors that seemed to account for the negative attitudes towards careers in hospitality, formed after students had undertaken a practical work assignment, are: stressful jobs, lack of family life owing to the nature of the work, long working hours, exhausting and seasonal unstable jobs, low social status jobs, unsatisfactory and unfair promotions, low pay and insufficient benefits, unqualified managers, poor attitudes and behaviour of managers towards employees, unqualified co-workers, poor attitudes and behaviour of co-workers, and poor physical working conditions for employees.(26) A longitudinal case study found that over a period of fourteen years students’ views of the hospitality industry had become much more negative.(27) Furthermore, a study revealed that students who have undertaken a period of work experience have opposing views of the industry to those students just beginning their hospitality course.(25) Furthermore, it is argued that a substantial number of graduates leave the industry owing to poor working

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