INTERNSHIPS AND ERASMUS MOBILITY PROGRAMS AS A PLATFORM TO EMPLOYABILITY: THE PERCEPTION OF HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT UNDERGRADUATE STUDENTS OF ESTH/IPG

Transversal skills promoted in individuals by the internships and Erasmus mobility are consider a relevant issue nowadays in terms of employability but still not well explored by scientific research in Portugal, concerning the specific case of professional activities within Hospitality Management. We revise these concepts and contexts, and also theirs interrelations and importance, especially for the Hospitality Management education and practices.

Complementary, the present study aims to expose and discuss the points of view of a group of undergraduate students about:
i) internships and Erasmus mobility programs
ii) their perception of the importance of those context for their employability.

So, with an exploratory and a quantitative methodology, this study present the surveyed students characterization and explore some important aspects of theirs internship and mobility experiences, and also theirs employability expectations generated by those involvements. Beside the presentation of the main results of the ongoing survey we compare the results about the mobility experiences and the associated perception of employability with some of the results presented in The Erasmus Impact Study (Brandenburg, 2014), that is a large and recent study made at a European level.

Finally, we reflect about this study limitations and the main conclusions extracted from the study and underline some possible implications of this work and research issues to deep in the future.