Internationalisation at home for tourism training programmes: case studies from Vietnam

Abstract

Purpose Tourism is one of the most notable features of the contemporary globalised world. The tourism industry is becoming increasingly vital to the economy of many developing and developed countries around the globe. The demand of the tourism industry has posed a challenge for tourism training providers to move towards a more responsive and internationalised curriculum to enhance work readiness for tourism graduates who are expected to work with an increased number of international tourists. The purpose of this paper is analyse whether and how internationalisation has been implemented in the tourism training programmes across six institutions in Vietnam. Design/methodology/approach The research deployed case studies as research strategy with interviews and document analysis as two instruments of data collection. Findings The major findings show that even though the tourism industry demands graduates to possess global competency, knowledge and skills, the curriculum does not prioritise the internationalisation dimensions and the faculty members are not facilitated to be internationally active in their roles. Overall, internationalisation is still fragmented and ad hoc in these institutions even though the private institutions in this research appear to be more responsive to the trend of internationalisation in education than their public counterparts. Research limitations/implications The paper provides recommendations on how to effectively embed internationalisation components into local tourism training programs in Vietnam. Originality/value The research bridges the gap in the literature on internationalisation of the local tourism programme in non-English-speaking countries.

Lecturers’ perceptions of the Internationalization of the Curriculum in Finnish higher tourism education

“…The focus is on isolated experiences and activities, which are largely disconnected from the program of study, rather than on the systematic development of the whole program. In conclusion, the findings are in accordance with the results of Khuong and Tran (2018) who concluded that IoC in higher tourism education is still fragmented and based on ad hoc practices.…”

“…Leung, Wen, and Jiang (2018) compared the differences in curriculum development of undergraduate hospitality programs in the U.S., the UK and Australia with suggestions of creating international hospitality program standards to make hospitality programs comparable across countries. Khuong and Tran (2018) analyzed how internationalization has been implemented in the tourism training programs in Vietnam mainly focusing on IaH.…”