Tourism Students’ and Recent Graduates’ Perceptions of Integrating Soft Skills into English for Tourism Courses

Abstract

In the dynamic and service-oriented industry, tourism requires employees to possess a combination of high-touch and high-tech skills. For high-touch skills, English courses for tourism students provide an appropriate context for developing these competencies because language learning naturally involves communication, collaboration, and problem-solving. This study investigated tourism students' and recent graduates’ perceptions of the integration of soft skills into English for Tourism (EFT) courses at the University of Finance – Marketing (UFM). A quantitative research design was employed using an online questionnaire administered to 118 current students and recent graduates of UFM from the 2022–2025 cohorts. Descriptive statistics were used to analyze the data. The findings showed that participants considered all twelve pre-identified soft skills as important for their future careers. Participants also strongly supported integrating soft skills into EFT courses. Although current EFT courses were perceived to positively contribute to soft skills development, their contribution was relatively limited. This revealed a gap between the participants’ perception of the significance of soft skills to tourism majors and their perceived contribution of existing tourism English curricula to the development of these skills. The findings also demonstrated that EFT courses should adopt more experiential and learner-centered pedagogical approaches, such as authentic workplace simulations, collaborative learning, intercultural communication, and reflective activities, to enhance graduates' employability and workplace readiness.