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The purpose of this paper is to profile the Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes theme issue “The way forward: how is Malaysian hospitality and tourism education working with industry?” with reference to the experiences of the theme editors and writing team.

Structured questions were used to enable the theme editors to reflect on the rationale for the theme issue question, the starting point, the selection of the writing team and material and the editorial process.

Malaysia’s hospitality and tourism industry is facing an acute shortage of skilled employees, accentuated by the fact that jobs in the industry are not broadly appealing to Malaysians.

The hospitality and tourism industry in Malaysia wants to employ graduates with a professional attitude and mindset, and to secure this objective, a greater focus on work-based learning is needed.

The paper draws on discussion and applied research to explore the hospitality and tourism industry–education collaboration in Malaysia and the ways in which employability and retention can be enhanced by a greater emphasis on work-based learning.

The purpose of this paper is to present the concept of 2u2i – two years attachment with university and two years attachment with industry – a new learning mode introduced by the Ministry of Education as a strategy to enhance the employability of university undergraduate degree students in Malaysia.

The new mode of undergraduate degree program requires the university and industry to collaborate on the design of the curriculum and development of student training programs. Based on a series of qualitative discussions, the paper draws on the perspectives of university administrators and selected practitioners from the hospitality and tourism industry who are interested in developing 2u2i curriculum and working together to enhance the overall employability of university graduates. The paper explains the issues and challenges in implementing the 2u2i program at a local public university as a case study in Malaysia.

The 2u2i program provides a significant opportunity for industry to collaborate with the university in enhancing competencies and relevant skills among degree graduates so that they are able to excel in the workplace. Some of the issues and challenges involve bureaucratic procedures, time constraints in developing the program with industry, delay in approval procedures of the program and extra costs highlighted in managing the program with industry. Despite several challenges relating to the implementation of the program, it is important for industry to collaborate with universities in designing relevant curriculum to augment the employability skills of university graduates in Malaysia.

This paper explores different strategies for engaging with industry practitioners so that they are able to work closely with the university in crafting academic curricula in the hospitality and tourism field. This is important because it enhances university graduate employability via a relevant curriculum based on input from the industry.

This study aims to explore the viability of the curricula offered by a university specialising in hospitality and tourism education in Kuching, Sarawak. The study also aims to explore the relevance and application of the hospitality and tourism education curricula to the needs of the Sarawak hospitality and tourism industry.

Grounded in human capital theory, the article highlights the importance of education in facilitating competently skilled human capital. Using a qualitative research approach, the outcomes indicate that the curricula offered by the hospitality and tourism education sector does meet the basic industry needs in Sarawak.

The outcomes suggest that the education sector should adopt a work-based learning model as this is shown to be an effective approach to enhancing practical relevance and competency.

There is insufficient empirical evidence on the exact set of skills and knowledge needed by an individual to be competently skilled in response to the needs of the hospitality and tourism industry in Sarawak.

The purpose of this paper is to present a briefing on milestones of Malaysia Centre of Tourism and Hospitality Education (MyCenTHE) regarding its role as a nation-building exercise in developing human capital talent for future sustainable hospitality and tourism in Malaysia. Under a national initiative by the ministry of education, hospitality and tourism educational institutes in the country have set out to better prepare graduates for industry. MyCenTHE aspires to build a hospitality and tourism cluster (threefold) so that Malaysia is able to increase its annual output of hospitality and tourism personnel from 20,000 in 2009 to 50,000 in 2020 and increase the share of graduates with diploma- or degree-level awards from 13% to 50% by 2020. These expectations can only be achieved by creating a sustainable pool of workers for this sector. It was in this context for which “MyCenTHE” was conceived.

The current study is based on documentary analysis of secondary sources, qualitative in nature, and presents a case study of MyCenTHE with its key accomplishments in promoting hospitality and tourism education in Malaysia.

The hospitality and tourism industry in Malaysia is set to create 600,000 new job opportunities and in so doing, will need many more skilled, work-ready graduates in the coming decade. This paper highlights the collective efforts of the private higher education sector together with some selected public institutions (polytechnics) under the umbrella of the ministry of education through the MyCenTHE platform in promoting hospitality and tourism education nationwide via national awareness campaigns, conferences, skill competitions, seminars, forums and corporate social responsibility projects.

This paper is of value in its own context and in particular support from ministry and related authorities, 26 institutions of higher education working together, approaches to hundreds of local schools and thousands of audiences/participants in awareness campaigns.

The purpose of this paper is to promote the adoption of a work-based learning (WBL) approach by highlighting the benefits to students, organizations and the economy.

This paper provides a review and synthesis of current literature, including two separate case studies, which serve to demonstrate the practical applications of entrepreneurial education in different countries and how this application works to strengthen economies and improve communities.

Learning entrepreneurship in a real-world environment can bridge the gap between traditional, classroom instruction and idea-driven product and service development. It is a business-effective approach that achieves measurable results. Traditional education, typified by mastery of facts and evaluation by testing, can morph into creative, research-inspired solutions that fulfill public and private organizational needs. Success is irrefutable, measured by tangible results. In WBL, students can use industry-standard technologies and collaborate with mentors, clients and customers. They can work as individuals and in teams, with their entrepreneurial education beginning as early as elementary school. In the process, students learn to be motivated by their own achievements, rather than grades. They learn to engage in creative problem-solving, based upon current data, and measure their ability to deal with challenge and failure through an iterative process of problem-solving.

The completion of this research study serves to highlight the potential benefits that Malaysia could attain through the adoption of WBL within the country’s school systems.

This study aims to explore the perception and preferences of hiring managers toward employing airline cabin crew for management positions in food and beverage outlets.

A phenomenological approach is adopted for this study purposefully selecting food and beverage hiring managers and airline cabin crews.

The study concludes that with customized and effective re-training, food and beverage hiring managers are willing to employ airline cabin crews to assume managerial positions.

This study outlines the practicalities of re-training individuals to improve personal and organizational performance.

The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the ways in which hospitality and tourism education in Malaysia is working with the Malaysian Industry 4.0 framework.

A qualitative research approach was used to conduct 30 interviews with respondents working for academic institutions and local or foreign companies.

The analysis of data helped to identify themes relating to current foreign partnerships within this area of industry.

Through the resolution of this research question, specific recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders are made, which, if implemented, may facilitate further improvements in tourism and hospitality education in support of industry in Malaysia.

The purpose of this paper is to investigate and compare the impact of the minimum wage order from the perspectives of two different stakeholders, namely, hotel managers and employees, in the Malaysian hotel industry.

For the study, qualitative data were collected through semi-structured interviews from three managers and three employees from hotels in West Malaysia.

From the managers’ perspective, minimum wage implementation has resulted in managers adopting the best payment structure to reduce labour costs for the operators, deciding to reduce the service charge allocation to employees and having to deal with minimal improvement in employee productivity and motivation. In contrast, the positive impact from the managers’ perspective is lower turnover intentions and social justice for foreign workers. From the employees’ perspective, there is a rather negative impact – minimum wage policy has resulted in a minimal increase in the salary. From a positive perspective, employees said that they have experienced an improvement in living standards.

This research presents current responses from hotel participants regarding the latest wage increase impact, some six years after its implementation.

The purpose of this paper is to summarise the main points arising from the articles contained in this theme issue and to provide some directions for the future development of hospitality and tourism education in Malaysia.

The paper reviews the contribution made by this theme issue in response to the strategic question: How is Malaysian hospitality and tourism education working with the industry?

The paper observes that authors with different academic and industry backgrounds are able to generate significant outcomes in terms of the contribution to knowledge and/or professional practice, the implications for management action, applied research and industry practice in Malaysia.

This paper considers the extent to which the strategic question discussed in this theme issue could be applied to other ASEAN countries.

This study examines the relationship between absorptive capacity, team culture, competitive intelligence awareness and entrepreneurial behavior with strategic flexibility and sustainable competitive advantage and further investigates the moderating influence of innovativeness on the relationship between strategic flexibility and sustainable competitive advantage in the hotel industry.

The current study applied a quantitative research method to collect data from five-star and luxury hotel management staff in Malaysia, using questionnaire surveys. A total of 550 questionnaires were distributed, and the researcher received 457 valid questionnaires. The hypotheses were tested using the SEM (structural equation modeling) analytical technique.

The salient findings of this research are (1) absorptive capacity, team culture and competitive intelligence awareness have a significant impact on strategic flexibility and sustainable competitive advantage, (2) entrepreneurial behavior has an insignificant effect on strategic flexibility and sustainable competitive advantage, (3) strategic flexibility has a significant impact on sustainable competitive advantage, (4) innovativeness actively moderates on the relationship between strategic flexibility and sustainable competitive advantage.

The study described here introduces a sustainable competitive advantage as a new and dynamic approach to explore how its outcomes or performance can be enhanced in the hotel industry. The outcomes of sustainable competitive advantage can help the long-term survival of hotels.

The present study suggests and explains the role of sustainable competitive advantage in the hotel industry and offers new insights into the competitive hotel industry's gaps and weaknesses.