THE ROLE OF EDUCATION IN THE HOSPITALITY INDUSTRY – LITERATURE REVIEW

Purpose - Developing the skills and competencies of employees through education and training is paramount to any business system. In tourism, especially in the hospitality industry, this is particularly important because of the special dynamics of the business, the variability of the environment, and the availability of labor. The purpose of this paper is to summarize and analyze research on education in the hospitality industry in the past decade (2012-2022). Design /Methodology - To create a systematic literature review, the authors analyzed articles indexed in the Web of Science database (Web of Science Core Collection). Based on a keyword search and content analysis, 138 research articles published in leading tourism and hospitality journals were identified as relevant to this study. Approach - The analysis of articles and conference proceedings followed a multi-step process. After selecting the relevant articles, two programs were used for further research. For citation and co-authorship analysis, the program Clarivate, and for co-authorship by country elements and cooccurrence analysis, the program VOSviewer. Findings - The findings of the paper provide an overview of education in the field of the hospitality industry and track the evolution of hospitality education over time. The paper identifies new areas of research in hospitality education. Originality of the research/Contribution - The contribution of the paper is a systematic literature review of hospitality education. The paper provides analysis of trends in current scientific research and defines under-researched segments of hospitality education.