Journal of Tourism and Services - Vysoká škola obchodní v Praze

6. Conclusion and Future Research
The present study aims to contribute to the Internships and
Employability literature as far as Tourism HE is concerned. Employability
and, more precisely, its links with internship as an effective antecedent of
the development of employability skills are still under-researched and
empirical investigation is needed in order to better understand this
connection. As a fundamental part of many academic programmes, the
present study shows that the great majority of Portuguese HEIs have
considered internships when reorganizing their courses according to
Bologna’s indications. There has been indeed an accelerating commitment
from the HEIs with issues related to the incentive for internships as the
high number of Portuguese HEIs with mandatory training components
reveal. This tendency is also visible in Tourism courses, as 65.79% display
mandatory internships and those who don’t, offer services that provide
students with some guidance towards getting an internship experience.
In addition, our findings suggest that internships provide a better
understanding of the labour-market and they raise employability
awareness in students who did it as empirical evidence shows. In fact,
these two aspects, internships and employability, have revealed to
somehow influence the students’ choice about which HEI to choose and
which course to attend. If these issues are taken into account in the
process of entering the HE system, they also influence students’ opinion
while graduating. In fact, those who have had internships’ experiences,
and therefore a closer contact with the labour market, show a more
precise, informed and strict opinion regarding the services provided by
the HEI towards their integration in the Tourism working sector.
However, the results also revealed some lack of information about the
concept of employability as a whole and the elements that constitute it,
narrowing it to a singular aspect, internships. Even if students have
shown that internships may help them to become more prepared for the
labour market, they still do not consider it as an aspect, among many
others, that can make them become more employable. The relationship
between internships and employability perceived by students seem to be
reduced to one only concept, disregarding them as different issues and
moreover, as the condition of internships as an antecedent of
employability. Even if other aspects related to employability are developed
by the HEI, students aren’t so sensible towards them as they are with the
internship experience.
Besides, it’s also a fact that HEIs still do provide Internship offices
instead of Career services, that are already a reality in the Anglo-Saxon
educational systems, and that include, among other things, an internship
office. This organization of the studied HEI, a past history that has
underlined the importance of internship experiences, namely in tourism
courses, and the fact that employability issues have only now started to
be considered by HEIs, may have influenced students’ opinion, who
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