Hospitality Management Undergraduate Qualification Prestige: An Exploratory Study Of Malaysian Degrees

Abstract

Hospitality management education is a relatively young academic discipline. While hospitality management degrees are ubiquitous in the higher education arena, there has been debate on the discipline\u27s place in academia and import as a course of\u27 study. The prestige associated with hospitality management education varies from country to country. This exploratory study examines hospitality management education in Malaysia, a country with a vibrant hospitality and tourism industry. Using a qualitative approach, the authors examined the hate/management education landscape in order to examine its growth and to gauge the brevity of the discipline. The study allows for a conclusion to be drawn about the extent to which hospitality management is recognized as a discipline and thereby indicating the congruence between professional and liberal education and attitudes toward neo-specialization