ISSUES AND CHALLENGES OF COVID-19 PANDEMIC ON TOURISM AND HOSPITALITY EDUCATION IN MALAYSIA: A PRELIMINARY STUDY OF THE EVENT

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has immobilized almost the entire world today. In fact, the COVID-19 pandemic has also incapacitated all aspects of world life including education, community, employment and many more. Tourism and hospitality is one of the industries which seriously affected amid COVID-19 pandemic. It is undeniable that education is highly impacted within the industry amid COVID-19 and affects the future graduates’ employability. This study investigates issues and challenges of Malaysian tourism and hospitality education amid COVID-19 pandemic. A semi-structured interview was conducted through telephone involving 11 tourism and hospitality educators to identify issues and challenges faced within the academic institutions amid COVID-19 pandemic. The number of respondents is considered appropriate for a preliminary study to understand the event before proceeding with further study. The respondents were asked three major questions; (i) issues faced amid COVID-19 pandemic, (ii) challenges and (iii) recommendations for further action in dealing with the issues and challenges. The findings revealed that the critical issues faced within tourism and hospitality education during the pandemic are impacts toward internships and delivery of teaching and learning. The COVID-19 pandemic also brings about challenges in terms of unemployment and requirement of new skills for graduates’ employability. Further, three skills are needed by the tourism and hospitality graduates amid COVID-19 namely technology skills, soft skills and entrepreneurial skills. In conclusion, the findings suggest the need to reform Malaysia tourism and hospitality education as digital education. This study is considered as a preliminary study involving only few educators to identify issues and challenges of tourism and hospitality education amid COVID-19 pandemic, hence the findings cannot be generalized to the whole academic institutions offering the courses. Future study is recommended to be undertaken using more number of respondents representing the academic institutions in Malaysia.