Filipino Practicum Students' Close Encounter with Asian Tourists: An Experiential Study

DOI

10.2991/atf-16.2016.51How to use a DOI?

Keywords

Asian Tourists, practicum students, experiential, Filipino

Abstract

Practicum students play a major part in the hospitality industry. They support the regular staff assigned in the different sections in hotels, restaurants, travel agencies, airports and other tourism establishments all over the world. For Filipino hospitality and tourism practicum students they have their share of face to face encounters with Asian tourists. It is expected that their initial exposure to foreign tourists are with guests from the neighbouring countries This qualitative study was conducted to identify what were the challenges, lessons and wisdom that they have learned after they were exposed to tourists coming from Korea, Japan, and Thailand. Narrative journals submitted by students after their off-campus and in campus practicum were thoroughly analysed .Major findings which emerged from the study are (1 ) Students have a difficulty of communicating with Asian Tourists because of language barrier (2 ) Asian tourists are reserved but easy to please guests (3 ) Coping with multi-cultural diversity is a major challenge among students in providing guest services. (4) Despite of challenges met, students are happy dealing with Asian tourists. They strongly recommend to school authorities to offer courses such as Asian languages and Asian Culture and Traditions to improve the curriculum of hospitality and management programs. It is also recommended to invite visiting professors to teach these recommended courses. Through this their level of confidence in dealing with tourists all over the Asian region will be improved.

Copyright

© 2016, the Authors. Published by Atlantis Press.

Open Access

This is an open access article distributed under the CC BY-NC license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/).

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TY  - CONF
AU  - Emily Nival
AU  - Candice Aguilos
PY  - 2016/05
DA  - 2016/05
TI  - Filipino Practicum Students' Close Encounter with Asian Tourists: An Experiential Study
BT  - Proceedings of the Asia Tourism Forum 2016 - the 12th Biennial Conference of Hospitality and Tourism Industry in Asia
PB  - Atlantis Press
SP  - 347
EP  - 353
SN  - 2352-5428
UR  - https://doi.org/10.2991/atf-16.2016.51
DO  - 10.2991/atf-16.2016.51
ID  - Nival2016/05
ER  -