Tourism students’ experience of work-integrated learning.

The purpose of this study was to examine the perceptions of tourism students’ work integrated learning (WIL). The study involved an analysis of tourism students’ that completed the six-month WIL placement between December 2016 and July 2017, from the Department of Tourism Management at the Tshwane University of Technology in South Africa. The study investigated students’ perceptions with regard to WIL placement, hosting organisation and academic institution support. Tourism students’ completed the perception questionnaire at the end of their six-month placement period at a hosting organisation. The data presents the demographic profile of students’, the mean and standard deviation of perception variables of WIL placement, hosting organisation and academic institution support as well as Mann-Whitney and Kruskal Wallis analyses, which are generally used to test for variance between distinct groups. The results indicate that students have a positive overall impression of WIL, but that support from both the hosting organisation and from the academic institution were lacking. The implications for students are potential drop-outs prior to WIL completion, insufficient industry experience and potential career changes