The Importance of Soft Skills in Tourism Industry

This exploratory study aims to identify the need of generic skills in the tourism industry in Melaka. The subjects consist of 70 front liners, male (N=29) and female (N= 41) who work at recreational and hotel sectors in Melaka. Subjects responded to the Social Inventory for Melaka Tourism Sector (Inventori Kemahiran Sosial Pekerja Pelancongan Melaka). The inventory has a fairly high reliability of 0.85-0.88, hence suggesting its pragmatic utility. Findings of the study show that Melaka tourism front liners views the importance of generic skills as follows; ethiques and

This exploratory study aims to identify the need of generic skills in the tourism industry of Melaka. The subjects consists of 70 front liners, male (N=29) and female (N= 41) who work at recreational and hotel sectors in Melaka. Subjects responded to the Social Inventory for Melaka Tourism Sector (Inventori Kemahiran Sosial Pekerja Pelancongan Melaka). The inventory has a fairly high reliability of 0.85 -0.88, hence suggesting its pragmatic utility. Findings of the study shows that Melaka tourism front liners views the importance of generic skills as follows; ethiques and knowledge (Min= 4.3, SD: .70), personality (Min= 3.9, SD: .68), attire (Min= 3.6, SD: .37) and language (Min= 3.6, SD: .49).

Proceedings of the 1st International Conference One Belt, One Road, One Tourism (ICOBOROT 2018), 2019

The research aims to analyze the importance of soft skill influenced for the tourism community for the purposed of tourism satisfaction. This is a quantitative research and the data analyzed of tourism satisfaction. This is a quantitative research and the data analyzed by using SPSS 16.0. This research shows that: The influenced of soft skills had important things for giving the services to the tourism community to get the tourist satisfaction, We known from the answer of the respondence that they get the good services, the prove the payment, honestly, the visitors get the same quality of services from the tourism community. But they still needed to developed their team work. All of this purposes to get the satisfaction from the tourism whose visiting their place.

Tiltai, 2023

Employers currently emphasise primarily the importance of the personal and social characteristics of employees, and focus less on their professional and business skills. Contrarily, employees often consider deep professional knowledge and skills to be their key strengths, and pay little attention to personal growth and the development of personal characteristics. The aim of the research is to compare the soft skills most frequently required by potential employers in job advertisements for the position of administrator to the employee soft skills predominantly identified by the students on the Tourism Administration course. A study designed to identify employer expectations was conducted in 2019 and 2021. In order to determine the opinions of students in 2021, a written questionnaire survey of higher education students on the Tourism Administration course was conducted. The analysis of the opinions of students, and an examination of employer expectations, demonstrate that employer expectations regarding the skills of potential employees, especially personal or soft skills, and student opinions, do not always match. The impact of the pandemic created a paradoxical situation in the labour market: before the pandemic, progressively more attention was being paid to employees' soft skills; in the post-pandemic world and working in a hybrid way in the labour market, not all personal skills remain important.

Tourism in Southern and Eastern Europe, 2021

Purpose – To improve the employability of tourism and hospitality (T&H) graduates, faculty must continually reassess what soft skills are essential for T&H graduates to possess and amend their curricula to meet these needs. Thus, this study aims to identify the soft skills perceived as essential for the T&H graduates through a systematic literature review (SLR). Methodology – Google Scholar was systematically queried from 1990 to April 2018, resulting in 77 T&H soft skills-related peer-reviewed publications. Four T&H researchers/educators produced an initial pool of 1447 T&H soft skills from these publications, categorized them in either conceptual/creative, leadership or interpersonal dimensions of Sandwith’s (1993) Competency Domain Model and trimmed for relevance. Finally, the elicited key soft skills were further edited via an online survey of 19 T&H researchers/educators from Italy, Malta, Portugal, and Spain. The relevance of generated soft skills was double-verified thought s...

To accelerate the enhancement of fulfilling the needs of qualified Indonesian tourism HR, many higher education institutions have developed tourism science study programs. Indonesia University of Education (UPI) also has contribution to develop tourism science in opening Tourism Marketing Study Program. The Study Program is quite different from the former tourism schools that have been developed in Indonesia. The former emphasized more in vocational skills, where as the later offers a graduate program to fulfill the needs of managerial skills at the tourism industry. Hence, to achieve this objective, the study program's learning method is not only expected to enhance the students' academic competence on the concept and theory of hospitality and tourism. It also attempts to develop vocational competence that contains aspects, such as knowledge, attitude, and skills that are required by the hospitality and tourism industry. Thus, there are three competences that are developed in the study program: 1) Core Competence-the major competence for students and graduates to have strong marketing skills, adaptive, professional, and have a good attitude in tourism industry; 2) Supporting Competence-the soft skills competence that makes students and graduates having better interpersonal skills as well as intrapersonal skills; 3) Other Related Competence – the competence of specific hard skills that required by the hospitality and tourism industry, such as hotel occupation competences, food and beverage occupation competence, and destination occupations competence. One of the competences that play an important thing to develop tourism HR is soft skills (supporting competence) development. It is proposed that by having soft skills integrated to its learning method, the graduates would be able to sustain at the hospitality and tourism industry workplace and work in the sectors professionally. It is very hard and sometimes stressful to the students who would enter to the industry, since the workplace is very dynamic, involving with an excessive contact of different people, having long working hours and willing to work on holidays. Hence, developing tourism human resources need more attention in the soft skills improvement to prepare the students to enter the industry. There are two areas that are developed in improving soft skills: 1) Interpersonal skills-the ability for students to manage themselves, such as time management, self motivation, self learning, etc. 2) Intrapersonal skills-the ability of the students to communicate and to build relationship with their working partners. Hence it is important to evaluate how students have accomplished soft skills that are required by the tourism industry. Therefore, it needs a research that would attempt to discover the requirement of soft skills in the hospitality and tourism industry, the performance of students at the workplace, and the model of learning method to enhance the soft skills improvement. Thus, the topic of this research is " Competence Development on Tourism Marketing Management Study Program through Soft Skills Improvement " .

2019

2018

Higher education institutions (HEIs) are under increasing pressure to equip graduates with the necessary knowledge, skills, and attributes that would make them employable and highly versatile in various tourism sectors. This means that the various qualifications in tourism that are awarded by HEIs should reflect the tourism industry’s needs and expectations. Consequently, it is important to identify the kind of knowledge skills that need to be developed in tourism graduates to prepare them for the working world. The purpose of this article is to identify the perceptions of tourism graduates and the tourism industry on the important knowledge and skills required in the tourism industry. The research adopted a sequential explanatory mixed method, which entailed combining quantitative and qualitative methods. However the findings, both from the quantitative and qualitative phases highlight the important knowledge and skills required. In terms of important knowledge and skill, both part...

Cognizance Journal of Multidisciplinary Studies (CJMS), 2025

This empirical investigation examines the interplay between perceived employability skills and training needs within Baguio City’s tourism sector, framed by Human Capital Theory and Competency-Based Approaches. Employing a descriptive-comparative design, the study collected quantitative data from 35 tourism workers and employers across 10 Department of Tourism (DOT)-accredited agencies, analyzed through weighted means and independent t-tests. Findings reveal a statistically significant perceptual disparity (p < 0.05) between employees’ self-assessed exceptional proficiency (mean = 3.31) and employers’ competent-level evaluations (mean = 2.77), particularly in problem-solving, cultural adaptability, and advanced technical competencies. While employees demonstrated strengths in communication, digital literacy, and operational tasks, critical gaps emerged in innovation implementation, cultural awareness, and mastery of computerized reservation systems. The study further identifies systemic limitations in existing training programs, which lack alignment with ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement on Tourism Professionals (MRA-TP) standards and fail to address emerging post-pandemic industry demands. To bridge these gaps, the research proposes a tripartite intervention framework: (1) Skill-Specific Training Modules targeting problem-solving, innovation, and risk management; (2) Cultural Competency Development through immersive cross-cultural workshops; and (3) Stakeholder Collaboration Platforms fostering mentorship and feedback loops between industry and academia. Key performance indicators (KPIs) include a 25% reduction in operational errors and a 30% increase in innovative service delivery within 12 months. This study contributes novel insights into perceptual mismatches in skill evaluation while advancing evidence-based strategies for ASEAN-aligned workforce development, ultimately positioning Baguio City’s tourism sector as a model for sustainable, culturally intelligent service economies.

This research explores the knowledge, skills and attitude readiness of the local people in the tourism designated spots of the Municipality of Dauin, Negros Oriental. It is also the aim of this research to identify the appropriateness of training that can be provided by the government and/or national government organizations. Data collection involved 403 respondents from the barangays with tourism spots. The researchers use survey questionnaires in gathering data of the local respondents. Based on the findings, few of the respondents have higher education background. Findings shows that few of the locals work as guides, Most of the respondents' income is below the national poverty threshold. Most of the locals are interested in working for the tourism industry but only few have tourism-related trainings. The knowledge about managing and operating the tourism business and knowledge about foreign culture. Financial skills such as accounting/bookkeeping in anticipating local tourist products preferred and skills in preparing tourism travel packages are some of the trainings needed by the`` local people. Several recommendations have been made to improve their KSAs. This study will contribute to the tourism industry information guide while improving the lives of the Dauinanons.