Abstract

The purpose of this article is to describe the academic skills of the graduates of the hospitality and tourism schools of Santiago de los Caballeros for the period 2023. A three-dimensional instrument was created referring to the professional profile of the graduates of the hospitality careers. and tourism, to job insertion strategies and to generic skills according to the profile of the hospitality and tourism career established in the National Qualifications Framework of the Dominican Republic. There were a total of 43 items with an ordinal measurement level, applied to a sample of 42 teachers from the four local universities that lead to a degree in the tourism specialty. The selection criterion was non-probabilistic with a voluntary strategy. Through simple frequency distributions, it was found that the lowest levels of competencies according to the teachers' evaluation are in the areas of languages ​​(µ=2.10), research (µ=2.05), mastery of history and culture (µ2.00) and technology (µ 1.95). For their part, the best evaluated competencies were work ethic (µ1.57), effectiveness, honesty and responsibility (µ1.62, respectively). It is concluded that the profile of academic skills of graduates of hospitality and tourism courses in Santiago de los Caballeros presents weaknesses in hard skills. This means that the training and cognitive bases, typical of the specialty, are not being satisfied by the university educational system. On the contrary, soft skills, that is, complementary skills for professional practice, are in one way or another defining the profile of the graduate subject to inserting themselves into the national economy through the tourism sector.

Keywords:
graduates; skills; tourism; training; qualification