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COVID-19 has significantly disrupted global landscapes and forced a quick adaptation towards new ways of conducting higher education, with almost all tertiary institutions compelled to embrace online teaching and learning quickly. In addition, this crisis presents an opportune moment to reflect on the why and how higher education assessments should be framed through a blue ocean strategy for disciplines such as tourism and hospitality. While the blue ocean strategy has emerged within tourism and hospitality practice, little is known as to how this is manifested in the context of educational settings, and especially academic voices as part of such radical transformations following COVID-19. To address this gap in knowledge, this research traces the journeys of 16 Chinese academics transitioning as educators before, during, and after the outbreak of COVID-19 through the theory’s four actions framework of eliminate, reduce, create, and raise. The findings revealed how the pandemic challenged their philosophical stances of who we are as assessors, the dilemmas of technology-mediated learning and assessment, indicators of professional development, and assessing outside one’s comfort zone. Derived from these outcomes is a conceptual framework around a blue ocean strategy to repurpose the role of assessments from a narrative of what and how, to what now and how else of tourism and hospitality education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The present study aimed to assess faculty satisfaction on the delivery of tourism and hospitality management programs in the flexible learning mode at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic. It employed a purposive sampling design where 85 Tourism and Hospitality Management (THM) faculty members, across 27 Higher Education Institutions (HEIs) in the Central Luzon, Philippines, participated. While findings indicate that the faculty members are generally satisfied with the conduct of flexible learning in their institutions, they generally agree on items relating to having higher workloads, longer preparation time for a course, lack of human interaction by not seeing students face-to-face, lower participation of students, technical and connectivity problems, and the need to employ creativity and resourcefulness in the development of learning aids. As the better normal ushers in, flexible learning will still be implemented with the addition of limited face-to-face delivery. As such, faculty members play a vital role in the success of program delivery. That is, when they are satisfied with their conditions, students perform better which leads to better learning and outcome. Effective institutional support services are thus key to ensuring quality flexible learning environments. For continuous improvement, recommended actions should constantly be reviewed, modified, and enhanced to respond to uncertainties and the changing times. HEIs need to recalibrate their curriculum grounded on a deeper understanding of flexible learning to address these challenges; capacitate the faculty with innovations available to enhance student engagement; upgrade infrastructure designed to provide timely feedback and to ease out connectivity issues; and lastly, review policies on faculty workload and number of preparations to consider longer preparation time. Received: 29 December 2021 Accepted: 8 March 2023

COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of online teaching and learning modes. It has also abruptly changed the traditional teaching and learning methods that originally relied on physical attendance, including student internships. In-house training programs were launched by the university to offer students an alternative to their regular internships. The study is designed to investigate how university students in tourism and hospitality education perceive the usefulness of their in-house training in absence of industry placements. An exploratory methodological approach was adopted by conducting 25 semi-structured in-depth interviews with student interns to understand their experiences during the in-house training. The empirical findings revealed that the in-house program, in its current state, is not to be considered a permanent alternative for tourism and hospitality undergraduate students. The article concludes by presenting implications for educators, policymakers, and education researchers derived from the academic and practical discussions based on the findings.

Academic dishonesty is a pervasive problem in Chinese higher education, with both motivational and contextual factors influencing students' behavior. This study integrates self-determination theory (SDT) and the motivation-opportunity-ability (MOA) model to investigate why students engage in academic dishonesty during thesis writing and their decision-making processes. SDT emphasizes intrinsic motivation and the satisfaction of basic psychological needs, including competence, autonomy, and relatedness. The MOA model posits that behaviors result from the interaction of motivation, ability, and opportunity. Through qualitative interviews with students majoring in tourism and hospitality, this research demonstrates that students with lower levels of self-determination (i.e., lack of autonomy, lack of competence, and lack of relatedness) show a limited willingness to complete thesis tasks in a moral manner. Moderated by ability frustration and opportunity frustration, the motivation to be dishonest leads to actual immoral behavior. This study sheds light on the complex factors driving academic dishonesty and offers insights for addressing this issue in higher education. • Examining students' motivations for engaging in academic dishonesty. • Investigating the decision-making mechanism of students regarding academic dishonesty. • Integrating self-determination theory and the motivation-opportunity-ability model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The growing infrastructure and the surge of world-renowned retailers in Macao has led to the new demand for knowledgeable managers and practitioners. This study aims to identify views from retail and marketing experts in order to unearth essential and relevant learning outcomes which in turn support the review and improvement of the Tourism Retail and Marketing Management program at Macao Institute for Tourism Studies. Kolb's experiential learning theory and Bloom's taxonomy are adopted to explain the expectations from industry experts in order to provide clearer understanding. An integrated 'Bloom-Kolb Learning Design Canvas' is proposed to support future design of training and learning activities. Through purposive sampling, nine industry experts from different retail companies were approached and interviewed to generate data for this study. Thematic analysis revealed desirable competencies of the retail graduates, as well as gaps that existed between industry practice and education programs in areas including knowledge, skills, and attitudes that are essential for graduates to possess. The findings were valuable for improving the existing program to become more relevant to the graduates and industries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

COVID-19 has accelerated the adoption of online teaching and learning modes. It has also abruptly changed the traditional teaching and learning methods that originally relied on physical attendance, including student internships. In-house training programs were launched by the university to offer students an alternative to their regular internships. The study is designed to investigate how university students in tourism and hospitality education perceive the usefulness of their in-house training in absence of industry placements. An exploratory methodological approach was adopted by conducting 25 semi-structured in-depth interviews with student interns to understand their experiences during the in-house training. The empirical findings revealed that the in-house program, in its current state, is not to be considered a permanent alternative for tourism and hospitality undergraduate students. The article concludes by presenting implications for educators, policymakers, and education researchers derived from the academic and practical discussions based on the findings., Competing Interests: The author declares no competing interests., (© 2022 The Author(s).)

Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality are regarded as smart and digital technologies that made their impact in many industries and settings. On the other hand, the ongoing pandemic of COVID-19 raises a series of issues and challenges for the tourism education, one of the main being the shift from the conventional/face-to-face to digital/hybrid learning forms and tools. The adoption and usage of these digital technologies raise a series of challenges for all stakeholders involved. The research question and study's aim were the influencing factors that determine the acceptance of Augmented Reality and Virtual Reality applications in the tertiary tourism education within the context of current pandemic. To address this aim, the study was drawn on the theoretical basis of Technology Acceptance Model (TAM). It takes a students' perspective to suggest a research model that was empirically investigated within the Chinese context (tourism departments in Chinese universities). The sample population consisted of 604 Chinese students and data was collected during February 2021. The data were analyzed using PLS-SEM. Findings indicated that perceived usefulness, hedonic motivation and price value are important predicting factors for Chinese students' adoption and use of these applications. These findings contribute to the extension of the TAM theory and the effective implementation of digital technologies in university settings. The study is completed by summarizing theoretical and practical implications of findings. • Extended TAM model for the adoption of AR/VR technologies in tertiary education. • Perceived enjoyment/hedonic motivation and perceived price value. • Usefulness, hedonic motivation and price value influence students' intentions to use AR/VR. • Extension of knowledge in tourism digital/hybrid education. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study aims to determine how the COVID-19 pandemic affects career anxiety of tourism students, who are the potential future employees of tourism and hospitality industry. Data was collected using an online survey with 1097 undergraduate students in the field of tourism in Turkey. The results of the study revealed that perceived risk of infection and fear of COVID-19 significantly impact students' career anxiety, and fear of COVID-19 mediate the relationship between perceived infection risk and career anxiety. In addition, the results indicated that psychological resilience, which is an individual resource against difficulties, represents a factor that reduces career anxieties of students in the face of pandemic-related negative impacts. The findings contribute to the understanding of how pandemic diseases affect career anxiety in students, who are the future workforce of the tourism sector, and to determine the role of individual resources such as psychological resilience in this process. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

While the notion of external referencing has been undertaken across a range of disciplines, its adoption in a tourism setting remains largely fragmented. This project applies a 'floating classroom' as part of a virtual Community of Practice (CoP) to enable tourism policy and planning educators to perform a benchmarking exercise for maintaining teaching quality despite geographical separation and social distancing mandates. Virtual CoPs can help maintain teaching quality at a time when universities are increasingly required to uphold international standards of excellence and as the coronavirus continues to make face-to-face interactions risky. The CoP enabled mutual support and knowledge sharing for the design of teaching approaches, materials, and authentic assessments. The paper was limited to three educators teaching similar courses in Anglophone institutions and reports the results of a one-off study. But findings will assist educators interested in maintaining or enhancing teaching quality over the course of the pandemic and post-COVID-19 futures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Despite the importance of understanding tourism and hospitality (T&H) students' career choices for both high education institutions and industry practitioners, scarce empirical research exists which limits drawing reliable conclusions on the antecedents of T&H students' post graduate behavioral intentions. Drawing on data collected from 267 undergraduate T&H students in Turkey, the results show that perceived education quality is positively associated with T&H students' intention to join the industry but not to pursue a postgraduate degree. The findings also confirm the mediating role of academic self-efficacy on the relationship between perceived education quality and T&H students' intention to pursue postgraduate degree. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]