Tracing hospitality and tourism graduates’ career mobility

Abstract

Purpose

This paper aims to evaluate the career patterns and global mobility trajectories of hospitality and tourism graduates that are relevant for global knowledge and local talent management.

Design/methodology/approach

This study maps and assesses the public profiles of over 2,000 hospitality and tourism graduates from five institutions each from a different territory using a popular online professional network.

Findings

The findings highlight a network of worldwide mobility from hospitality and tourism graduates of the five institutions. The findings also suggest five different types of mobility trajectories (i.e. stateside, intra-regional, continental, inter-regional and global) and career patterns (i.e. rooted, prospector, seeker, two-homes and wanderer).

Research limitations/implications

Geographical mobility of graduates in tourism and hospitality is one of the less studied phenomena; however, it is important to understand due to growing concerns regarding globalization of the workplace and internationalization of education.

Practical implications

This study provides insights into how knowledge transfer and talent management could be impacted by the global graduate movements.

Originality/value

This is one of the first studies to date to combine mobility trajectories with a classification of career patterns to provide implications relevant for global knowledge and local talent management.

Citation

Tolkach, D. and Tung, V.W.S. (2019), "Tracing hospitality and tourism graduates’ career mobility", International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, Vol. 31 No. 10, pp. 4170-4187. https://doi.org/10.1108/IJCHM-10-2018-0857