A comparative study of hospitality education in Australia

This study continues Davidson's 1996examination of curriculum expectations of first year hospitality management students in Australia, and provides a comparative analysis of the key points from the 1995and 1996results. The following seven Australian universities participated in the 1996study: Edith Cowan University (ECU), Western Australia; Griffith University (GU), Queensland; La Trobe University (LTU), Victoria; Northern Territory University (NTU), Northern Territory; University of New South Wales (UNSW), New South Wales; University of Western Sydney (UWS), New South Wales; and University of Queensland (UQ), Queensland. The above university programs are indicative of the growth of hospitality education which has sought to satisfy the need for hospitality managers that occurred in the late1980sandis expected to continue through to the next millennium. Only one of the above universities (the University of Queensland) offered such a program in the 19705; all other programs in this survey have commenced since 1989. The Australian government has recently undertaken a review of university education with the chair of the review committee, Roderick West and members of his committee, publicly canvassing the validity of vocationally-oriented degrees such as hospitality at university level (Armitage, 1997). It is, therefore, timely to address the issue of the expectations of educators' customers (students) from such programs.