Examining the skills of operating a business of the students that studying in vocational high schools' secondary education programs in the field of tourism

The tourism sector is one of the sectors where communication is the strongest. In order to obtain high income from tourism, a country needs to ensure the sustainability of its resources, expand its promotional activities, and also give importance to the employment of qualified personnel in order to increase the quality of communication and service. In Turkey, tourism education provided at the secondary school level contributes to the training of qualified intermediate staff for the tourism sector. Tourism education at this level covers the accommodation and travel services and food and beverage services departments. This study aims to examine the skills of individuals who graduated from secondary school tourism department to work in accommodation establishments, and suggestions regarding tourism education are presented according to the results obtained. For this purpose, semi-structured interview technique was applied to 42 business executives selected from Çeşme district of İzmir and Hatay province. According to the results of these interviews, business officials drew attention to the importance of vocational high schools cooperating more with businesses, increasing practical courses in schools, and arranging the physical conditions of schools in accordance with the departments. In addition to the need to allocate more time to foreign language education, it was also stated in the interviews that educators should give more importance to the promotion of the tourism field and encouraging the profession in order to make students adopt the profession. Key Words: Accommodation businesses, tourism education, secondary education, vocational training, tourism employment