Employability of Tourism Graduates: A Case Study of Hanoi University, Viet Nam

The global tourism and travel industry generated 334 million jobs in 2019, accounting for one-fourth of all new jobs worldwide (WTTC, 2021). However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the industry's contribution to the total travel and tourism GDP decreased from 10.4% to 5.5% (ILO, 2020). Vietnam is one of the top 10 places where tourism is growing fastest in the world, with more than 18.008 million international tourists and 85 million domestic tourists coming to the country. As of December 2019, there were 2,648 international travel agencies with 26,864 tour guides and 30,000 accommodation establishments with 650,000 rooms in the country (Hanh, 2021). The demand for human resources in the industry continues to grow, but the supply of qualified workers has not kept pace. To ensure the industry's sustainability and growth, there is a need to retrain current workers and prepare new graduates to fill the skills gap. The focus of the DBA study is on the professionalism and employability of tourism graduates, which are key concepts that will help bridge the gap between the industry's demand for skilled workers and the higher education system's ability to produce them.