Typologies of students preferring faculties of tourism

The evolving dynamics of the global tourism industry have increasingly underscored the need for a highly qualified workforce, thereby highlighting the strategic importance of tourism education. Faculties of tourism not only provide academic knowledge but also aim to equip students with innovative, creative, and sustainability-oriented professional competencies. In this context, analyzing the individual characteristics and motivational drivers behind students' preferences for tourism faculties offers valuable insight for improving curriculum design and strengthening professional identity.This study aims to identify the typologies of students who prefer to enroll in faculties of tourism. Data were collected from a conveniently selected sample of 764 undergraduate students studying at public universities. To uncover the underlying patterns between students' demographic attributes and their university preference factors, Multiple Correspondence Analysis (MCA) was employed. The findings reveal that the university preference behaviors of tourism students do not exhibit a homogeneous structure. The sample group showed significant variation in terms of gender, geographical background, prior sectoral experience, and preference criteria. These results indicate that higher education preferences are shaped not only by personal desires but also by structural conditions, social orientations, and career expectations. The study provides data-driven insights that can inform institutional promotion strategies, the restructuring of educational content, and policy development in areas such as gender norms and regional disparities. Furthermore, the typology-based approach employed in this research brings to light often-overlooked motivations behind students' preferences and is expected to offer a valuable conceptual and methodological framework for future studies in this field.