Better than their reputation? – Do hotel and restaurant students drink more?‡

It has been suggested that workers in the hotel and restaurant sector are high consumers of alcohol. Larsen (1994), for example, reported that students in restaurant and hotel administration programmes obtained higher scores on the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) than other students. The present study was designed to test whether the self-selection or the learning and socialization explanation better accounts for these findings. Students (n = 172) studying for various careers within the service sector were surveyed. Students in tourism (including hotel and restaurant) programmes and students who had had some work experience from the industry obtained the highest AUDIT scores. However, when controlling for age in a multiple regression model predicting alcohol use, the effects of study group and work experience disappeared. These results are inconclusive, although if workers in the tourism, hotel and restaurant industries actually drink more, the results may be interpreted as supportive of the socialization hypothesis.