Student Leadership Development

Abstract

An increasing amount of leadership development programs (LDPs) is being promoted to enhance individual skills and to foster the development of leadership capabilities, particularly in response to today’s volatile, complex and ambiguous business world. Investment in soft skills and leadership development also enables industries to prosper in the long term as management and leadership skill gaps are reduced. With the anticipated tourism and hotel development growth across the world, there is a rising need for managers who have the right skills and capabilities to help businesses and organisations achieve sustainable business performance. As industry practitioners look for graduates with the right mix of hard and soft skills, tourism and hospitality educators should further nurture the development of such skills to allow their graduates to prosper. The aim of this exploratory research is to determine leadership development needs of students studying tourism and hospitality courses, and inform the development of student leadership program initiatives, encouraging individual and industry growth.