The Awareness of Schools Students on Impacts of Tourism and Their Career Intention: The Case of Gampaha District, Sri Lanka

Abstract

Problems associated with human resource in the tourism and hospitality industry is subject to great debates in the recent past. School students are the future leaders, but selection of tourism and hospitality careers is less frequent compared to other industries, which makes the industry vulnerable in the mid-term. Thus, the present study explores the school students’ awareness of the impacts of tourism and hospitality industry and career intention. A sample of 400 Advanced Level school students were selected for this study using the stratified systematic sampling method. To achieve the proposed research objective, a quantitative research method was adopted and data were gathered through self-administered structured questionnaires from the school students. Collected data were analysed using SPSS (version 21) package and basic descriptive statistics, factor analysis, correlation analysis and regression tests were run on data to find out the answer for the main research question. Consequently, eight features of impacts of tourism were identified: economic gains, economic losses, social hazards, social well-being, interpersonal factors, wise consumption of resources, environmental quality and environmental degradation. Regression analysis results testified positive causal relationships economic gains, social well-being, wise consumption, environmental quality and respondents’ career intentions in the tourism and hospitality industry. A significantly negative relationship between economic losses and interpersonal factors and career intention was also identified, whereas awareness on social hazards and environmental degradation upon career intentions were not statistically significant. Tourism and hospitality policy makers and professionals can encourage more school leavers to join with the tourism industry by applying the recommendations provided based on the findings of this study