ALIGNING HIGHER EDUCATION HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT CURRICULUM TO 21ST CENTURY INDUSTRY DISCOURSES IN SOUTH AFRICA

The tourism industry in South Africa, including its hospitality sector, has grown and developed substantially since democratisation in 1994. Growth from 2002 to 2008, notably in preparing for the FIFA Soccer World Cup in 2010, increased hotel room supply by about 22%.

Of interest, is that the discourse on accommodation supply dates back to the promulgation of the Liquor Act No 30 of 1928, which introduced criteria to control liquor sales. The next change driver was introduced in 1965 when the Hotel Bill was promulgated. Soon afterwards, the Hotel Board was established. Over the next 35 years hotels improved the operational effectiveness of accommodation, far more when compared to service innovation. Since 2000 some corporate groups began to align to the global emphasis on product and service innovations as a means to promote contribution to Gross Domestic Product.

This paper posits that a traditionalist discourse still dominates the management of accommodation products and services in South Africa. We argue that industry leaders’ mind-set appreciates operational competence more than developing competitive services though people leadership. Moreover, that higher hospitality management education in South Africa should rather define and deliver future graduate attributes, than merely aligning to a vocational bias.

This paper investigates local views on the role and purpose of higher hospitality management education curricula in developing an appropriate range of hospitality management competencies. The paper emerges from a larger study aimed at evidence-based recommendations to realign higher hospitality management education in South Africa to the evolution of accommodation products and services.

A myriad of literature addresses global perspectives on hospitality graduate competencies. These sources signal that South Africa is lagging in providing the range of management and leadership competencies considered essential to the next generation of hospitality manager-leaders. The local state of hospitality management education was examined by means of critical discourse analysis of semi-structured interviews conducted with executives representing each of the three largest South African hotel groups.

We found that the accommodation subsector favours graduates to demonstrate behavioural and operational competencies, but that they generally lack competencies related to business acumen. However, there were varying views regarding the level of management and leadership competencies graduates should possess after completing their undergraduate studies. This study ultimately serves to improve the grasp of South African providers of higher hospitality management through curriculum innovation in order to expand the range and weighting of hospitality management competencies.