Assessment the Digital Skills Gap and Training Needs for Tourism and Hospitality: The Case of Egypt

Ahmed, Mohamed; Abdou, Maha Y.K.

doi:10.21608/jihtha.2022.389490

Assessment the Digital Skills Gap and Training Needs for Tourism and Hospitality: The Case of Egypt

نوع المستند : المقالة الأصلية

المؤلفون

Mohamed Ahmed ¹
Maha Y.K. Abdou ²

¹ Hotels Management Department, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt

² Tourism Studies Department, Faculty of Tourism and Hotels, Fayoum University, Fayoum, Egypt

10.21608/jihtha.2022.389490

المستخلص

Tourism and hospitality sectors operate in a dynamic, fiercely competitive, and quickly evolving environment on a national and worldwide scale. Nonetheless, it is clear that academic research is needed to address the primary problems and challenges facing the hospitality and tourism sectors. However, it is less clear how the two sectors are collaborating. In addition, tourism and hospitality business will have numerous difficulties in the future. It is evident that employees in the tourism and hospitality industries now more than ever need to maintain supplementary skills beyond core competencies. Furthermore, there are still disparities in skills between what employers require and what employee have. Therefore, this paper aims to identify the digital skills gaps and training needs in Egyptian tourism and hospitality industry. This study's methodology is built around a quantitative approach to meet its objectives and validate the research hypotheses. In order to gather data from five-star hotels and tourism companies (category A) in Cairo, a convenience sample approach was used. Data are gathered for the current study using questionnaire forms. Out of the 400 copies of the questionnaire that were issued, only 300 were returned, representing a 75% response rate. The findings indicated that there are significant knowledge and skill gaps pertaining to digital skills challenges. Furthermore, training has a major impact on both the current and future competency levels in digital skills. The conceptual model was used tested and offered for academics to highlight the relationship between the contextual factors (type of sector, and job level), training delivery and the current/future level of digital skills proficiency.

الكلمات الرئيسية