Comparing the Students Perceptions Towards Tourism Sector Before and During Education Process

Abstract

In the relevant literature it claims that the students who get tourism education at university have negative perception and attitude towards the tourism sector and hence there are inadequate educated staff in the tourism sector. Based on this finding, in this study tourism management students’ perceptions of the tourism sector were compared by measuring with literature-based questionnaire in the Pre-education and during education process. Questionnaire applied 73 students enrolled tourism management department in 2016 and in 2018 only 43 of 73 students can be reached. By using Paired Sample t-test, students’ perceptions of tourism sector before education and during education process was compared. As a result, it has been determined that the same students have positive perceptions towards tourism sector before starting education and this positive perception has been replaced by negative thoughts during education process. Moreover, the students have gained average 2 months experience in these two-year education process.