Abstract:

Current society and the labour market value and demand that people have the ability to work in teams and be creative, innovative and adaptable to new situations. Having become increasingly important in education, these skills are particularly relevant within the tourism, hospitality and catering fields, which traditionally rely heavily on practical teaching and learning approaches, focusing on real-word issues and skills that reflect the professional scenarios and challenges of future graduates.

Drawing from these premises, this paper will describe ‘Rota dos Sabores’, a student-organized gastronomic event taking place in the last semester of the degree in Catering and Restaurant Management of Portuguese HEI. Aiming to enhance students’ creativity, teamwork, collaborative skills, and their ability to adapt to new situations, this event combines both soft and technical skills (e.g., event organisation and management), at the same time it helps students broaden their international gastronomic culture, being leveraged by structured practical training and work simulation approaches.

Based on desk research, observation and content analysis (resulting from questionnaires applied to the students and event participants), this paper aims to frame the activities carried out, crosscutting different perspectives as to establish the importance of collaboration and teamwork in shaping the future careers of hospitality graduates. In addition to describing the different event stages and its implementation, the authors will reflect on students’ overall performance and feedback as crucial components of teaching and learning experiences.

As a result, this paper is expected to contribute to the development of new training and inform future simulation-based activities in this area.

Keywords:

Simulation Based-Learning, Hospitality, Catering, Education, Skills.