Pathways into tourism higher education

To understand tourism and hospitality students' career paths into higher education, interviews with twenty final year undergraduate students at five UK universities were undertaken. These interviews revealed four different pathways into tourism and hospitality higher education. The paper also confirms the often haphazard and unplanned nature of early career decisions, as well as highlighting the extent of social structures and employment experiences as playing a determining role in early career development. While the findings are particularly relevant to policy makers and academics in the UK, they resonate more widely in an era of changes in higher education on a global scale.