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Abstract:
The hospitality industry in Kenya faces the task of attracting and retaining skilled employees despite an increase in the number of Universities offering hospitality undergraduate management course. Work-placements are essential ways of bridging the gap between the industry and academia. Thus, this study was designed to ascertain whether work-placement experiences have significance influence on post-experience behavioral intentions. The study targeted hospitality undergraduate students in their fourth academic year and data were collected using self-administered survey. A Pearson correlation analysis revealed significant effects of positive and negative work-placement experiences on post-experience behavioral intentions of the study participants. The results suggest that, positive work-placement experiences do influence post-experience behavioral intentions positively, whereas, negative ones do the opposite. The study recommends hospitality practitioners to design sound work-placement programmes that would align with the interns' expectations and thus, ends up generating satisfaction. In addition, the study recommends hospitality academia to help students develop realistic industry expectations and more so, implement more students' academic visits to the industry in order to ensure they are well informed about the practical reality of the industry.
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