Hospitality Management Students' Entrepreneurial Intentions and Perceived Challenges: A Case Study of Takoradi Technical University, Ghana

Abstract

One of the most noteworthy issues in Ghana is unemployment in almost all sectors including the hospitality sector. It has gotten to the point that university graduates typically must wait a long time before finding employment. Entrepreneurship has been identified as a potential solution to address unemployment and promote economic development. The study evaluated the factors that influence hospitality management students’ intentions to set up hospitality businesses, as well as their perceived challenges in setting up hospitality businesses after school considering the aforementioned. The findings of this study are significant for educational institutions, policymakers, and industry stakeholders in developing strategies to foster entrepreneurship among graduating students. The study adopted a descriptive survey method. A simple random sampling technique was used to select a sample of two hundred (200) final year students from the Department of Hospitality Management in Takoradi Technical University for the study. The data was collected by means of questionnaires and analyzed using Statistical Package for Social Science (SPSS) version 26. Among the key findings was that students plan to set up their own businesses after school, because they believe it would make them financially independent. They also perceived the challenge of accessing the necessary loans to start a business in Ghana. The study concludes that Hospitality Management students of Takoradi Technical University generally have entrepreneurial intentions and recommends that there should be start up programs and more entrepreneurship course training and extracurricular activities. These create a supportive context for entrepreneurship thereby enhancing students’ motivation and capabilities for starting their own hospitality businesses after school.

Keywords: Entrepreneurial intentions, unemployment, students’ perceptions, financial independence, hospitality education

DOI: 10.7176/JTHS/66-04

Publication date: February 28^th 2024