Are university tourism programmes preparing the professionals the tourist industry needs? A longitudinal study

The present four-year study analysed university students’ acquisition of the cross-curricular skills needed in the tourist industry. The aims were to determine whether tourism students at a Spanish university feel that their university experience enhances cross-curricular skills, which the tourism industry values as important, and whether there are differences in this respect between men and women.The findings showed that the acquisition by the students of the cross-curricular skills that the industry values as important is uneven, and that most of them are not adequately acquired; and that there are no significant differences in this respect between men and woman.