Raising standards for hospitality and tourism education in Malaysia

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to present a briefing on milestones of Malaysia Centre of Tourism and Hospitality Education (MyCenTHE) regarding its role as a nation-building exercise in developing human capital talent for future sustainable hospitality and tourism in Malaysia. Under a national initiative by the ministry of education, hospitality and tourism educational institutes in the country have set out to better prepare graduates for industry. MyCenTHE aspires to build a hospitality and tourism cluster (threefold) so that Malaysia is able to increase its annual output of hospitality and tourism personnel from 20,000 in 2009 to 50,000 in 2020 and increase the share of graduates with diploma- or degree-level awards from 13% to 50% by 2020. These expectations can only be achieved by creating a sustainable pool of workers for this sector. It was in this context for which “MyCenTHE” was conceived. Design/methodology/approach The current study is based on documentary analysis of secondary sources, qualitative in nature, and presents a case study of MyCenTHE with its key accomplishments in promoting hospitality and tourism education in Malaysia. Findings The hospitality and tourism industry in Malaysia is set to create 600,000 new job opportunities and in so doing, will need many more skilled, work-ready graduates in the coming decade. This paper highlights the collective efforts of the private higher education sector together with some selected public institutions (polytechnics) under the umbrella of the ministry of education through the MyCenTHE platform in promoting hospitality and tourism education nationwide via national awareness campaigns, conferences, skill competitions, seminars, forums and corporate social responsibility projects. Originality/value This paper is of value in its own context and in particular support from ministry and related authorities, 26 institutions of higher education working together, approaches to hundreds of local schools and thousands of audiences/participants in awareness campaigns.