A tourism immersion internship_ Student expectations ...

Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education 13 (2013) 60–69

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Academic Papers

A tourism immersion internship: Student expectations, experiences and satisfaction Lisa Ruhanen n, Richard Robinson, Noreen Breakey The School of Tourism, The University of Queensland, Brisbane QLD 4072, Australia

a r t i c l e in f o

Keywords: Tourism Internship Education Student experience

abstract The number of internship models that can potentially be applied to a field of study such as tourism is as broad and diverse. Conceptually, this study draws attention to an ‘alternative’ less structured, multi-stakeholder, knowledge-exchange model, which augments traditional internship approaches. Further, few studies have investigated students' expectations, experiences and satisfaction with these alternative models. This paper reports on a qualitative study of undergraduate students who had participated in a unique tourism internship program focused around a destination immersion experience. The findings demonstrate opportunities to provide meaningful work integrated learning experiences that are different from more traditional internships. Crown Copyright & 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction There are a range of models and approaches to the design of internships but generally students are placed with a host organization, often for a substantial period of time (Yiu & Law, 2012). Internships as a work integrated learning model have grown in popularity and are now widely used in a variety of disciplines and feature in many degree programs. Such models are prevalent within business, tourism and hospitality tertiary study programs (Van Hoof, 2000) and as Yiu and Law found in their review of the hospitality and tourism literature, “recently, there has been a large increase in the popularity and perceived significance of internship programs” (2012, p.378). Internships, or supervised work experience, can value-add to, and contextualize, students' theoretical knowledge by applying and trying concepts in practice (Busby, 2003; Cho, 2006; Ju, Emenheiser, Clayton, & Reynolds, 1998; Lam & Ching, 2007; Walo, 2001; Waryszak, 1999). It is important for academics and program managers to understand student perspectives of internships as these opportunities are now recognized as an ‘essential collegiate experience’, as opposed to just an optional enhancement to academic requirements (Collins, 2002). A focus in the literature has been on the more ‘traditional’ tourism and hospitality internship programs. Few studies have presented or critically examined other forms of internships, for example the location-based learning courses that incorporate tourism destination-based assessment and guided familiarization visits to regions (Croy, 2009). Researchers still urge further research to evaluate stakeholders' perspectives of various internship models (Beggs, Ross & Goodwin, 2008; Cho, 2006; Lam & Ching, 2007; Knemeyer & Murphy, 2002). In particular, even fewer studies have investigated students' expectations, experiences and satisfaction (see Yiu & Law, 2012), particularly in respect to these ‘alternative’ internship models (Ruhanen, Breakey & Robinson, 2012). Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to report on a qualitative study of undergraduate tourism, hospitality and event students who had participated in the Tourism Regional Immersion Program (TRIP). The program is unusual in that it is n

Corresponding author. Tel.: +61 7 3346 7095. E-mail addresses: [email protected] (L. Ruhanen), [email protected] (R. Robinson), [email protected] (N. Breakey).

1473-8376/$ - see front matter Crown Copyright & 2013 Published by Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jhlste.2013.02.001

L. Ruhanen et al. / Journal of Hospitality, Leisure, Sport & Tourism Education 13 (2013) 60–69

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destination focused, rather than job/organization focused. The TRIP model is an internship, work integrated learning experience where students are immersed (living, working, socialising, etc.) in a destination for a period of up to 10 days. To achieve the research purpose in-depth interviews were conducted with the students and the data were subject to analysis using a qualitative software program. This generated a concept map of the emergent themes that allowed exploration around the broader topics of students' expectations, experiences and satisfaction with the TRIP program. The paper introduces relevant literature and the TRIP program before presenting the research methods which underpinned the study. The research findings and discussion are provided before conclusions and implications are outlined. 2. Literature review Internship is one of the most prevalent terms used to illustrate the student focused collaborative arrangement that takes place between education institutions and organizations in the ‘outside’ world. Primarily designed to provide and/or enhance the professional education experience of students, essentially an internship is an experiential learning model where students have an opportunity to apply learned theories in real world and/or practical situations; thereby allowing opportunities for students to integrate and consolidate thinking and action by integrating classroom learning with real world experiences (Lam & Ching, 2007; Chang & Chu, 2009). Often internships are associated with an extended period of practical work placement; anything from several weeks to a year or more, taken in one or multiple placements. There are of course other models of work experience or work integrated learning which students might take part in, such as field visits, study tours, industry projects, live case studies, sandwich placements, mentoring, client-based learning models and so on (see Yiu & Law, 2012). However, for the remainder of this paper the term internship has been used to broadly refer to the many forms of practical work-related learning experiences. There is a large and diverse body of internship related literature in the education field generally as well as discipline or field specific studies such as those in tourism and hospitality (see Airey & Tribe, 2005; Toncar & Cudmore, 2000). The focus of this paper is on the student perspective, addressing the three topics: student expectations, experiences and satisfaction with the TRIP program. The literature most relevant to these topics is on the benefits and challenges associated with such internship programs. Students are generally considered to be the main beneficiary of internships, although there are of course numerous benefits to academic institutions, educators and employee hosts. Much of the literature has focused on the positive benefits students derive from applying classroom based knowledge, theory and concepts to real world settings (Alpert, Heaney, & Kuhn, 2009; Boger & Lim, 2005; Busby, 2003; Chang & Chu, 2009; Chi & Gursoy, 2009; Clarke, 2003; Gunlu & Usta, 2009; Harris & Zhao, 2004; Mello, 2006; Mistilis & Harris, 2009; Robinson, Barron, & Solnet, 2008; Stitts, 2006; Walo, 2001; Zopiatis, 2007). Further, internships provide an opportunity for students to gain hands-on, practical experience, as well as develop and acquire skills and knowledge that cannot be obtained within a normal classroom environment (Alpert et al., 2009; Boger & Lim, 2005; Busby, 2003; Chi & Gursoy, 2009; Clark, 2003; Collins, 2002; Mello, 2006; Van Hoof, 2000; Van 't Klooster, van Wijk, Go & van Rekom, 2008; Walo, 2001). In fact Busby (2003, p. 322–323) claims that it is the internship that provides the “procedural knowledge that Tribe (1997, p. 639) identifies as a hallmark of the professional practice of tourism management”. This concurs with studies that have claimed internships provide a means to develop or enhance personal attributes and abilities such as: communication, interpersonal, problem-solving, critical thinking, networking, leadership and customer relationship skills (Boger & Lim, 2005; Busby, 2003; Cho, 2006; Clark, 2003; Collins, 2002; Lam & Ching, 2007; Mistilis & Harris, 2009; Scott, 2007; Stitts, 2006; Walmsley, Thomas & Jameson, 2006; Zopiatis, 2007; Zopiatis & Constantine, 2007). Another benefit to students is the practical experience that they gain through internships. This can improve their capacity to enter employment ‘industry ready’ (Breakey, Robinson, & Beesley, 2008). Indeed numerous studies have noted the enhanced employment prospects (Alpert et al., 2009; Busby, 2003; Chang & Chu, 2009; Clark, 2003; Kay & DeVeau, 2003; Knemeyer & Murphy, 2002; Rehling, 2000; Robinson et al. 2008; Sapp & Zhang, 2009; Stitts, 2006; Stratta, 2004; Zopiatis, 2007). As Stitts (2006, p. 446) noted the students have already been exposed and are somewhat ‘adjusted’ to “the psychology of workplace cultures”. It is for these reasons that internships have been found to offer graduates a competitive edge (Alpert et al., 2009; Somerick, 1993; Boger & Lim, 2005). In fact, Mello (2006) argues that internships are the single most effective strategy for gaining permanent employment. Although the benefits of internships for students are reasonably well documented, there are challenges that can limit their success. For instance, the management of internships is unquestionably challenging. Organizing, planning, and implementing an experience that is developed with an academic purpose but is designed for non-academic implementation is complex (Kay & DeVeau, 2003; Zopiatis, 2007). For instance, a study by Collins (2002) found that 58% of students complained that they were not given enough training prior to commencing their program. The monitoring associated is logistically challenging; resourcing visits to, and contact with, the intern in situ, as well as the intern's employer or supervisor. Further, hosts often struggle to design sustained projects and tasks that are suitable to the intern and the learning objectives of the experience (Toncar & Cudmore, 2000). Others have found that internship programs fail due to a lack of clarity and understanding (or even ignorance) regarding each party's (employer, educational institution and the student) roles and responsibilities (Govekar & Rishi, 2007; Zopiatis, 2007). Specifically, from the student perspective, access to managerial staff has been noted in the literature (Yiu & Law, 2012), and this is one aspect of the internship that the design of TRIP set out to address.

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2.1. The ‘Tourism Regional Immersion Program’ The School of Tourism at The University of Queensland, Australia, offers its undergraduate tourism, hospitality and event students an alternate type of work integrated learning experience to the traditional internship. TRIP is one of four work integrated learning streams in a core final year professional development course. This internship opportunity is offered to competitively selected students, both domestic and international. As the students are receiving learning experiences, and credit, for the internship they are not paid for this short period in industry. However ‘in kind’ support is provided for the students by the regional tourism stakeholders, including accommodation, meals, transport, and access to office space and resources. The engagement with industry is extensive, with between five and fifteen government and industry stakeholders participating from each destination. Research on the perspectives of the destination stakeholders regarding one rollout of TRIP has been published (Reference withheld for Peer Review ). The TRIP internship differs from the traditional approach in three key ways: a destination, not an organization; ‘24/7’ immersion, not ‘9–5’ shifts; and team, not individual placement. Students are working with a tourism destination, instead of being placed within a single organization. Within the destination, the students may work with various government, not-forprofit, and business organizations. The type of work may include some of the more ‘traditional’ work experience style activities as well as the consultancy research projects that the students complete. Secondly, TRIP is a destination ‘immersion’ experience where participating students live and work in the host community for the duration of the internship. It is important to emphasize that unlike traditional internships, the students do not return home after work each day. This immersion has numerous implications, including needing to shop, cook, dine, travel, share accommodation and work collaboratively with the other members of the intern team, as well interacting with the destination stakeholders in both work and social situations—for the entire duration of the 24/7, 10 day internship. Thirdly, the interns are not individually placed, but instead students work in small groups, ranging between four and eight students depending on the destination experience. The very nature of these various aspects of TRIP, particularly with respect to the potential number of stakeholders and the dynamic relationships that might form, the live-away-from-home aspect, the daily travel, the non-prescribed temporality, all coalesce to mitigate against developing a highly structured program. Indeed, TRIP was conceptualized as a program that would be organic and develop according to the shifting needs, priorities and creativity of the participants and their destination hosts, notwithstanding pre-negotiated logistical and project outcomes; the former including accommodation and the latter written reports and/or oral presentations from the students. The rationale behind the introduction of TRIP into the Bachelor of International Hotel and Tourism Management was to provide student participants with a ‘real world’ and integrated learning experience while also facilitating applied outcomes for industry and to enhance academic-industry partnerships and engagement through the partnership (Beesley & Cooper, 2008; Breen, 2002; Harris, 1994; Solnet, Robinson, & Cooper, 2007). The immersion-style model was utilized to assist in the development of relationships and interactions between students, participating organizations and the broader local community of the host tourism destinations providing a genuine preparation for management of all aspects of work in the real-world. As with all courses at the university, a standard feedback questionnaire is distributed at the end of each iteration of TRIP. To gain an in-depth understanding of the perspectives of the students regarding their internship an additional qualitative research project was undertaken, and provided the scope of this study. The results of the research could then be used to inform the future roll-outs of TRIP to achieve more positive outcomes for the students. 3. Method To gain an understanding of the perspectives of the students who participated in TRIP an interpretive–qualitative research design was appropriate. In-depth, semi-structured interviews were undertaken with all 34 students (21 international and 13 domestic) who had participated in TRIP during the 2009 and 2010 program rollouts. This method generates rich, in-depth empirical research data (Jennings, 2010). The interview guide was framed to explore students' expectations, experiences and satisfaction with TRIP. The impact on the students of both the traditional and distinctive aspects of this internship were investigated. All interviews were undertaken face-to-face by a researcher without prior involvement with either the students or the design or management of TRIP. The interviews ranged from 30 min to one hour. With the permission of the participants interviews were recorded digitally and written transcripts were given to the respondents for member checking. These multi-data formats and the multiple outputs generated by the Leximancer program (which will be detailed below), including the thesaurus, themes, supporting statements and so on assured the dependability and confirmability of the analysis, more appropriate approximations of reliability for qualitative studies (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Hollinshead, 2004). As qualitative research generates a significant volume of rich data, especially with 34 in-depth interview transcripts, a qualitative computer program was utilized. The data sets were subject to analysis via Leximancer; a software program that facilitates thematic content analysis techniques (Loosemore & Galea, 2008). This provides the framework for discussing the identified themes, concepts and patterns that are basis for all qualitative research analysis (Berg, 2001). The software is a proprietary mathematically based text mining and text analytic tool that can be used to identify the true meaning from text, and to display the extracted information visually (Leximancer, 2010). In addition to quantifying and coding text segments,


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Leximancer develops a thesaurus of words around a set of initial seed words, and incorporating the proximity of the words in the transcripts, displays the data in a ‘concept map’ (Loosemore & Galea, 2008). The qualitative data analysis moves from the particular (text transcripts and codes) to the general (concepts and themes) (Creswell, 2005). In the Leximancer concept map, the themes are represented by the circles, with the size and depth of color used to illustrate the dominance of the theme. The level of overlap between the circles demonstrates the co-occurrence of these themes in the data. Within Leximancer, the theme name is derived from the most significant concept within the theme circle, and the concepts themselves are the most frequently used words by the students in the interviews. The various sizes of the concept points, and their locations, indicate the relationship and connection to other concepts and the color indicates its thematic group. In addition to the concept map, a supporting table provides a list of the concepts and quantitatively ranks them by their frequency of occurrence based on the interviewee's responses (Loosemore & Galea, 2008). Once the data sets are input into the software autotags are applied to exclude from the analysis, for example, the dialog of the interviewer. As such, the presented results only include the themes and concepts based on the 34 student interviewee responses. The clustering was run several times in the software in order to establish the validity and stability of the concept map. Again validity, for qualitative research, is best approximated by alternative concepts, notwithstanding the ‘counting’ nature of the Leximancer program. Although there were some changes in regards to positioning, the key themes and concepts remained the same assuring trustworthiness, confirmability and credibility (Denzin & Lincoln, 2005; Henderson, 2006). The results and discussion, which situate the findings in the context of the literature, will confirm the transferability of the data in terms of its theoretical validity (see Kirk & Miller, 1986).

4. Results and discussion The results of the analysis of the in-depth interviews across the three TRIP topics: expectations, experiences and satisfaction, are discussed in order. The themes and concepts found in Leximancer analysis are displayed in the concept map) and the frequency of keywords are provided in Table 1. While the results are discussed within the three topics and key Table 1 Leximancer Emergent Concepts. Concept

Count

Relevance (%)

Experience Learning Different Industry People Time Days Operators Working Expect Course University Reflective Group Knowledge International Important Job Real Theory Feel Degree Internship Expectations Practical Destination Diary Program Study Career Satisfied Classroom Opportunities Social Change Assessment Studying

308 213 205 191 189 171 170 131 108 102 100 93 84 82 74 71 68 68 63 63 63 59 57 54 53 53 52 47 40 36 28 26 25 22 21 20 15

100 69 67 62 61 56 55 43 35 33 32 30 27 27 24 23 22 22 20 20 20 19 19 18 17 17 17 15 13 12 9 8 8 7 7 6 5

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themes and concepts, there are inevitable overlaps, such as between expect and experience. Common in the reporting of qualitative research, here the findings are discussed with respect to the existing literature on the student perspectives of internships. 4.1. Expectations Relevant to expectations, Leximancer provided the two overlapping themes of expectation and expect. The expect theme was even more closely related to the experience theme, as demonstrated by the overlapping circles. Further analysis within these themes identified that the expectations varied between international and domestic students. The interns from overseas, especially Asian countries, either had assumptions about what defines an internship, or had previous exposure to traditional models. As TRIP did not follow this usual format, these students had expectations that would not be fulfilled by this internship model. For domestic students this issue was not so prevalent. Previous research shows that students generally have expectations about obtaining hands-on work experience, developing personal and professional skills and gaining knowledge (Lam & Ching, 2007). Because of the nature of the TRIP model student expectations were somewhat altered and ranged from gaining exposure to: new places “going on a free trip and living together at a destination, as well as meeting people from different backgrounds” [s34]; new people “learning to meet new people…so meeting new people was great” [s1]; and a more general exposure to the Australian tourism industry “learn some new things and familiarize myself with Australian tourism products” [s4] and “that I would get to meet tour operators and I would get to see and learn about them. I think the main motivation would be to see the country, the Australian countryside and to meet new people” [s10]. Another notable difference between the international and domestic students was the concept of people which was prominent within experiences and strongly connected to expectations. The intersection of these concepts incorporated a series of discussions by international students around the non-classroom or non-academic based learning that can emerge by engaging in such programs. While most of the international students acknowledged that they were keen to participate in the program due to the work experience, this was not the sole reason or motivation for participating in TRIP. The social aspects and experiencing the Australia culture were identified by some students as more important learning motivators than just the academic outcomes. TRIP was seen as more of an integrated learning experience. This finding is different from the expectations that students would normally have of internships. However, it is logical that international students participating in overseas internships would want to experience the host culture as well (Toncur & Cudmore, 2000). Expectations around networking also differed between the two groups of students. For international students, especially those intending to return to their home country on graduation, their expectations of the network opportunities associated with TRIP were not as high as for domestic students. As one international student noted, “if I'm Australian, I felt that this network would be really good, but if I'm an international student I don't think it will really benefit me in a way” [s11]. Therefore, the proximity of expectations and job was largely associated with domestic students whose desire for work experience and exposure to employers was high: “to gain the work experience and to figure out if I did actually want to move into tourism” [s15]. These findings are again not consistent with those of other internship studies that have labored over the importance of finding full-time employment (Hite & Bellizzi, 1986). Again the TRIP model is most likely the reason for this. Interestingly though a number of TRIP alumni have been offered full time places on graduation with their industry hosts. Finally, in terms of program expectations a number of students noted that they did not have any particular expectations of the program: “yes, but I did not have much expectations of it, but I knew that I would ultimately gain some knowledge from the industry as well” [s2] and “I had no expectations of TRIP. To tell you the truth I didn't even know what TRIP was. When we had all our list of things, I just put one, two, three, four and then didn't really know anything about TRIP until I got asked to do the interview” [s7]. Students attributed this lack of expectations to a lack of preparation and knowledge about what TRIP entailed: “I did not really have much expectations of it, because right from the start I would say we were not given much information. We knew that it was a 10 day internship and we knew it was at Ipswich but we did not have an idea on what we were required to do” [s2]. Other students discussed that although they had few expectations at the beginning due to a lack of awareness about the program their expectations evolved during the experience: “At the start I didn't really know how big it was. By the end of it I realised it was quite a big thing and lots of organizations were kind of involved in it, so my expectations grew throughout the semester. I think they were met at the end” [s16]. Regardless of the apparent student ambivalence about TRIP and lack of expectations inherent to many of the statements is a desire for knowledge of the industry, of learning, of understanding how tourism businesses operate as well as softer skills such understanding different cultures. Implied here is that the students have some cognizance of those aspects of the internship that will derive them professional skills valued by industry. A possible explanation for the latent rather than manifest emergence of these themes may be that many graduates take ‘gap years’ after graduation (Simpson, 2004).


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These findings provide a natural segue into discussing students' experiences with the program. The findings quite clearly indicate that there was not a shared understanding of the program amongst all students. Other studies have noted that unclear and uncertain student expectations lead to a mismatch between expectation and satisfaction (Cho, 2006; Parilla & Hesser, 1998). For such reasons, it is crucial for all involved parties to discuss and understand the student's expectations of the internship program (Gunlu & Usta, 2009; Parilla & Hesser, 1998). As Collins (2002) notes, this will clearly impact on student satisfaction with the experience. This is particularly important where different models, such as TRIP, are used as students have little basis for comparison. Although workshops and seminars were provided to inform students about the TRIP model it becomes apparent from these findings that new and more effective means of communicating information to the students prior to the internship is crucial in managing their expectations, experiences, and subsequently, satisfaction. 4.2. Experiences Conducting the data analysis using the Leximancer software resulted in experiences being the most relevant theme for this study, indicated by the percentage of relevance (Table 1) and the central location and size of the circle. Experiences had strong connections with themes of expect and expectations, indicated by the bolding of internal overlapping concepts. In terms of experience the issue of the ‘different’ internship model emerged. As discussed above, some students, particularly those from overseas, expected a more traditional internship program: “it was like doing a university project. TRIP was not an internship as such…” [s34]. Further, those students that were already working in the industry or had some previous work experience tended to focus more on the knowledge aspects of the program: “we have a chance to share our knowledge and our understanding at the end of the TRIP with the local operators, so I think it's good” [s4]; “when we were there we were able to help them, for example with their website or give feedback on their website or how they were operating and things like that” [s15]; and, “more gaining knowledge from them but actually I was contributing which is a good factor I feel” [s12]. Interestingly, although much of the literature has focused on the beneficial learning students derive through connecting theoretical concepts with real world practice (Scott, 2007), because of the nature of the TRIP experience and in many cases the research component, the student participants generally felt that they were contributing knowledge and assisting the industry; as opposed to only working in an organization doing front line operational tasks, as often happens with internships. This approach has highlighted the opportunities associated with the two-way learning exchange as one of the key positive experiences for the interns with some students referring to improved self-confidence as a result. Even still most respondents felt that they had a positive learning experience, to varying degrees, from the program: “you do learn things from them [the hosts] like small skills and things that add onto your already current knowledge” [s1]. Most students cited communication skills as one of the major learning outcomes: “I learned communication skills and about dealing with people” [s28] and “it was good for my career. We spoke to people, and I built my phone manner and confidence” [s30]. The theme of time was also connected with the experience theme and can in part explain some of the more limited learning outcomes that students reported. The TRIP model is a 10 day program (at maximum) and so it may be assumed that, compared to other internship studies which have focused more on the learning benefits, students participating in TRIP did not have the opportunity to acquire other skills such as leadership, teamwork, supervision, etc. that have been identified: “no—it was very short, and we were sightseeing and visiting. We did not have much to do with managing the destination” [s24] and “10 days is quite short itself, so maybe we could have a longer working period, so as to gain more from it I would say” [s2]. This finding concurs with others (e.g. Boger & Lim, 2005; Toncar and Cudmore, 2000) who have noted that the length of an internship impacts on how students experience the program, particularly if the placement is short. People was a relatively strong concept within the experience theme. The students, particularly international students, had high expectations about meeting new people as well as the social aspects of the program (as discussed above). Again, mainly the international students, were initially reticent about socialising with their hosts, but the informality inherent to regional operators manifest as impromptu and organized social gatherings, which at different times and locations involved various tourism community stakeholders, the students and during site visits, supervising academics. For those students that shared accommodation in their location and socialised together for the duration of the program the social aspects were rated as particularly positive outcomes of the experience: “the social aspect [laughs]. Yeah I really enjoyed the social aspect of the internship. Learning to meet new people; you don't normally meet new people in your third, in your final year of university. So meeting new people was great” [s1]. The students were also required to work in groups and many found the group work projects, in this case, to be positive learning experiences. As two international students noted: “It actually brings up different perspectives. Like for the foreign students we may think of more academic ways; theories and stuff. But for the Australians, I mean, you guys are more creative and let ideas flow I guess, which is a very good thing. I've learned about speaking up and asking questions when you don't know. Because normally we will just keep to ourselves and see how it goes. But this activity helped me vocalise myself and ask questions” [s12]. “So this TRIP actually gives us the opportunity to learn from the domestic students and for them to learn from us as well. So it was a very good exchange of knowledge and information among the group. So I think that was the most positive aspect about the TRIP itself” [s8].

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Similarly Lam and Ching (2007) found team spirit and involvement to be the most important factor in predicting students' satisfaction towards their internship. Yet the benefits gained from the social aspects of such programs, as well as the team work aspects, have not been widely discussed in the literature, as compared to the benefits gained in regards to the real life experience and professional development of students (Beggs, et al., 2008; Huang & Jia, 2010). There have been a few recent studies that identified social support to play an important part in the satisfaction of hospitality internships (Chen, Ku, Shyr, Chen & Chou, 2009) and internships as a socialising process that affects satisfaction and future career decisions (Huang & Jia, 2010), and this study has further highlighted the recognition of the importance of social and team aspects. 4.3. Satisfaction Overall, the students who participated in TRIP were generally satisfied with the program, albeit to varying degrees. Differences in satisfaction were identified between domestic and international students, as noted previously, and differences were also evident between those students that had already had some form of work or internship experience and those who had not. Interestingly, although international students were least satisfied in terms of the model as an internship alternative, most had very high overall satisfaction with the experience and many considered it to be their most valuable experience during their degree. All students perceived to have gained some benefits and all would recommend it to other students. Students also discussed the importance of their interactions with tourism operators as well as other stakeholders, such as lecturers and project coordinators, in influencing their satisfaction with the program. In terms of all the various people involved, one student noted that: “It was good, you know, to talk to all the organizations, all the mentors and you now hear their story and how they got to where they are now and stuff like that and also like the people I worked with, the other people were fantastic to get the opportunity to meet them and work with them, it was great. I wouldn't change that for anything” [s7]. Not all students were positive about all aspects of the program. One of the most frequently occurring negative comments was that the operators didn't utilize the students to their full potential and this impacted on the students' satisfaction with TRIP: “mostly people didn't really know what to do with us. So it would have been nice to get really in there” [s7] and “I think that the operator, there should be more communication between the operators. I think that was a major negative because a lot of us got shoved around by some of the operators” [s1]. This will be discussed further below but can likely be attributed to the program design: “the businesses were not clear on what TRIP was” [s23]. Lack of task orientation and unclear roles are typical challenges associated with internship programs and have been found to impact on students' satisfaction with such programs (Cho, 2006; Collins, 2002; Kurtz, 1983; Scott, 2007; Sheldon, 1986; Zopiatis, 2007). Again this was an issue with the TRIP model which was further complicated by its particular design which was not a format that the industry participants had previously experienced. For TRIP this highlights the importance of the preliminary stages in designing the model to ‘iron out’ more of the program details: “such as the connection with the operators, maybe the agreement between the school and the operators not just a verbal one…maybe we have to write some written agreement to show what the aim for the program is” [s5]. However, this is also a learning process and the recent iterations of TRIP have learnt from some of these earlier issues, particularly around clarifying expectations of the student and their role as well as that of the host, with the development of contracts and memorandums of understanding for example. The role of the university staff also emerged strongly, as can be seen with the connection between the concepts of people and university. For some students this contributed to the positive social aspects of the program because of the opportunity to develop personal relationships with staff as well as the learning aspects that resulted from working in collaboration with staff on certain tasks such as the project report. As one student discussed: “I guess I didn't expect them to be hugely involved except for really sort of outline what it was that we had to do and I think they did that well and left us to our own devices enough but I'm really glad that they supported and guided us for the report for the knowledge exchange workshop” [s3]. 4.4. Summary of findings This paper has responded to calls for deeper insights into the machinations of ‘alternative’ internship models (Breakey et al., 2008) and in particular student expectations, experiences and satisfaction (Beggs et al., 2008). TRIP is one example of a strategically designed work integrated learning experience that is significantly different from more traditional internships common to tourism and hospitality education. Innovation generally (and certainly educational contexts are no different) has inherent risks (Sutton, 2001). The ‘immersion’ aspect of the TRIP program was designed to provide students with an opportunity to live, work and interact with the broader community in a host regional tourism destination for a period of one to two weeks and to undertake an industry identified tourism related project. This conceptualisation was deliberate in that it was hoped an organic and fluid relationship between students and hosts would transpire. Nonetheless, in this sense TRIP lacked some structure that other work placements often possess. This introduced a degree of uncertainty for the students and also (as apparent in the students' comments) for the industry stakeholders. For some students the traditional internship model is obviously favoured yet all still appreciated the experience to varying degrees.


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There were two key factors driving the students' experiences. First, was knowledge—its accumulation and sharing, or transfer. Given this was a key objective when the program was conceptualized (Breakey et al., 2008) this is a promising revelation. Inherent to this was the communication process, which contrarily factored as a negative legacy of the program as shall be discussed. Second were the social dimensions of their experience amongst the student cohort, notably between international and domestic students, but also between the in-destination tourism and community stakeholders and the academic staff. While this aspect of the program is summated again later, interestingly the social element also extended to a student inquisitiveness regarding tourism operator experiences. This student-driven curiosity of the nature of work, in this case mainly of small business enterprises and regional tourism officers, actually aligns with the objectives of many internship programs in terms of it being a conduit for the professional socialization of career aspirants (Harris & Zhao, 2004). There was a strong relationship between student experiences and their expectations. One key determinant however, appeared to be the student's place of origin. While an overall expectation for a socially enriching experience was articulated, a strong theme from the international students was an ‘Australian’ experience. As distinct from the professional development insights students sought, this aspect of the students' expectations seemed purely driven by leisure and travel motives. That ‘tourism students’ become ‘tourists’ is somewhat of an irony. This however, certainly accords with literature suggesting that international student market demand is as strongly driven by the host destination as by the host educational institution (Davidson, Wilkins, King, Hobson, Craig-Smith, & Gardiner, 2011). Again, the findings suggested that students expected more information to enable them to better understand the program before going in situ, and so to adequately prepare. Given the sample bias towards South-east Asian participants, this hankering for certainty is perhaps explainable via Hofstede's (1984) cultural dimensions framework. A natural corollary of expectations is satisfaction. Three factors seemed to drive student opinions. First, preconceived ideas about what an internship is highlights that subtleties of nomenclature can have serious implications. This certainly seemed to impact on the satisfaction of international students, from the perspective of professional development and learning. This satisfaction would probably have been heightened if TRIP complemented a traditional internship model. Second, the people dimension was a key driver of satisfaction, with students especially enthusiastic about the relationships they developed with the coordinating academic staff. Third, was the perceived lacking task orientation, previously identified in the literature as a shortcoming in internships (Zopiatis, 2007). It is worth noting here that the TRIP participants are clearly Gen Y, a cohort which extensive literature suggests respond well to some guidance but then relative autonomy in tasks (Solnet & Hood, 2008). Managing this aspect of the program would enable the students to be fuller participants in the knowledge exchange process, a cornerstone of TRIP's conceptualisation, and hence further facilitate the mutual benefits of knowledge transfers.

5. Conclusions and implications In conclusion, internships are widely applied in universities, often embedded in curriculum as a transition strategy between the education institution and the world of work. However, there are opportunities to develop alternate internship experience models that offer a range of other immersive, team-based and destination focused experiences. This paper has reported on one model, applied in a tourism and hospitality higher education context and the expectations, experiences and satisfaction of participating students. In-depth interviews with students showed they had largely unformed expectations, other than drawing from their understanding of more traditional internship models, particularly for international students who had previous experience of ‘traditional’ models. The students valued the depth of the experience, particularly the social and professional connections facilitated through the immersion aspect of the program. Although largely satisfied with the experience, there were suggested improvements and opportunities that could be capitalized on. The key implication for internship coordinators was to ensure the expectations and roles of the students and host organizations were developed at the inception and managed appropriately. There are three main implications from these findings for other internship programs. Firstly, and perhaps the key finding, and by implication the focal point of improvement is summed up by one of the students: “I think probably more structure and a more defined goal before you go into TRIP” [s14]. This could entail well defined briefing sessions prior and post the recruitment process. Moreover, a clearer articulation of the purpose, aims and logistics of the program, as previously suggested (Kay & DeVeau, 2003; Zopiatis, 2007), and ratified in memorandum of understandings for instance, should help address some of the critical findings. Despite the benefits derived from an organic program like TRIP this is clearly a finding transferable to other alternative internships. Moreover, academic mentors could be attached to each of the TRIP group research projects, to not just quality assure outputs, but also to ensure a procedural alignment of purpose with what occurs on the ground. These measures would also go a long way to providing structure to programs, which the students in this study felt was missing, particularly in terms of the industry hosts' perceived lack of preparedness—not a new theme in the intern literature (Toncar & Cudmore, 2000). Contrarily, there is a delicate tension between imposing a rigid and autocratic program template and otherwise laying a blueprint that might develop organically between the various TRIP stakeholders. Communication would appear as the key here such that institutions developing alternative internship models should consider clearly articulating expectations to students and industry stakeholders both before and during internships, perhaps leveraging mentors in this role or implementing progressive milestones. These strategies may mitigate the negative consequences of less structured programs and allow the benefits to bear fuller fruit.

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Secondly, institutions might consider offering a suite of work integrated learning opportunities, such that students' needs and wants for various types of work experience can be satisfied. At the authors university the TRIP internship is one of four streams that engage students in industry-based course work and assessment. Furthermore, students are encouraged to work casually or part-time in the sector in paid employment positions. Despite these options it is apparent that international students, in particular, have clear expectations regarding internships and these specific needs may not be matched by the current offerings. Finally, studies are often valuable in what they do not reveal as much as what is. Future research might consider means to gauge the success of internship programs in engaging higher order thinking, meeting key graduate attributes and industry readiness. Finally, although a number of studies have been conducted on internships generally and in tourism and hospitality specifically, this paper has provided insights into a unique and innovative approach to the internship model. While there are unquestionably challenges, as is the case with most approaches, the TRIP model does offer other benefits that are generally not obtained through traditional internship models. The social aspects were an important outcome due to the team based approach to the internship activities and the ‘24/7’ immersion of the students within the destination. The positive engagement in the social aspects that are rare in the modern education system has implications for tourism-related education, and in fact the broader education experiences of students. Furthermore the knowledge exchange opportunities with the tourism stakeholders were particularly beneficial for most students. Future research should also consider other stakeholder points of view so that a balance can be struck between structure and fluidity.

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Dr Lisa Ruhanen is a Senior Lecturer and the Postgraduate Coursework Program Coordinator for the School of Tourism, The University of Queensland. Her research interests include sustainable tourism destination policy and planning, climate change, and Indigenous tourism. Further, she has a Scholarship of Teaching stream to her research. She has been involved in some 25 research and consultancy projects including studies of climate change policy in Australia. She has published a number of academic journal articles, book chapters, conference proceedings and research monographs. In 2010 Lisa was awarded a fellowship under the Oxford Brookes University International Visiting Fellow Scheme in the United Kingdom.

Dr Noreen Breakey’s research explores the relationships between people, tourism and the natural environment, through her principal research areas of environmental ethics, ecotourism, environmental travel motivations, and tourism in protected areas. Dr Breakey has a wealth of industry experience, having worked in hotels, resorts, tour operations, travel agencies, events, and government in Australia and overseas. Dr Breakey has already developed an international reputation for her research on tourism and hospitality education, and her current research interests focus on sustainable visitor usage of the world’s existing, developing, and potential tourism destinations.

Dr Richard Robinson is Senior Lecturer in Hospitality Management at the University of Queensland, School of Tourism. He joined the School in 2005, after an extended career as a chef, predominantly managing foodservice operations in the private club and heritage facility sectors. He has since taught a suite of hospitality and tourism management classes and currently supervises several higher degree research students. He has coordinated and worked on research teams for funded national and international projects relating to tourism workforce issues, food tourism and the scholarship of teaching and learning. Dr Robinson’s work in these areas has been shared in leading academic journals, edited books, international conferences and industry periodicals and he has received university, national and international awards for his teaching and research.