Experiential learning and its effectiveness from the perceptions of hospitality students

Abstract

This work aims to review the implementation situation of experiential learning (EL) in China’s hospitality education and explore the perceptions of students on the effectiveness of the adopted EL methods. Observations and focus group discussions are conducted in three vocational colleges and three universities in China. The study reveals that EL activities are widely utilized in China’s hospitality education. Generally, students state that EL is more effective than traditional classroom learning. Nonetheless, they consider some EL activities as being ineffectively implemented. Several suggestions are given in this paper to provide support to hospitality educators for improving the utilization of EL methods and facilitate student learning. Furthermore, unique EL methods that are not documented in literature are adopted in China’s hospitality education.