The relationship between personality traits, factors that motivate to have a profession in the tourism and willingness to make career on tourism: Research on vocational and bachelor grade touri̇sm students

In this study, it is aimed to examine the relationship between the personality traits of associate degree and bachelor's degree students in tourism education, the leading factors towards the tourism occupation and the willingness to pursue a careerin tourism industry. In this context, a survey was carried out with 384 students who received tourism education at a foundation and a state university. In this research, as a data collection method, three different scales were used namely; personality traits, leading factors towards tourism occupation and willingness to follow a career in tourism industry. Quantitative methods were used in data collection and analysis and the data obtained were analyzed through using SPSS 20 statistical package program. As a result of the analysis conducted on the collected data, the students from the state university have more tendency to work in tourism industry than the students from the foundation university do. At the same time, it was found out that the second-year students are more willing to pursue a career in tourism than the first and third year students do and the third and fourth year students have higher willingness to work in tourism industry the first year students do. The relationship between personality traits, leading factors towards tourism occupation and willingness to follow a career in tourism industry was found out. Besides, it has been determined that personality traits have an impact on the leading factors towards tourism occupation as well as the willingness to pursue a career in tourism and the leading factors towards tourism occupation have an effect on the willingness to pursue a career in tourism. Keywords: personality traits, willingness to pursue a career in tourism industry, leading factors to tourism occupation.