Tourism graduates’ satisfaction: the new challenges for higher education institutions and for the tourism industry

Abstract

The present study analyses the antecedent and subsequent variables
of satisfaction for the Tourism graduate towards the attended Higher
Education Institution (HEI), and it also considers his/her knowledge
of the tourism industry as a professional. The meeting of these
experiences represent a key information source for the strategic
positioning and management of HEIs with a Tourism training offer, as
well as for the tourism industry, which recognizes those
corresponding more assertively to the needs of today's tourism
professionals. Based on a conceptual framework related to the
consumer satisfaction and using the Partial Least Square - Path
Modelling technique, the relationship between the variables that
comprise the process of customer satisfaction formation, based on the
National Consumer Satisfaction Indexes methodologies of Contents,
and some characteristics of the sample were analysed. The results
show that image is the main antecedent of satisfaction for the
respondents in relation to the attended HEI and also indicate a
relevant distinction in their perception of the HEIs’ nature, either
university or polytechnic.