Philippine E-Journals

Work and Travel Experiences of Filipino Tourism Students in Selected Universities

Geneive Joie Carpio | Athena Louise De Torres | Rinna Samiran | Kaselyn Joyce Villera | Sharon Manguerra-Mahusay

 

Abstract:

A Cultural Exchange Program widens the horizons of students. It gives them the opportunity to associate with other cultures and learn from them at the same time. This program also serves as a training ground where it equips students with skills, learnings and experiences that will help them in their future careers and make them more competitive. Hence, the objective of this study is to come up with an output from a set of guidelines established and gathered from the different ―Work and Travel‖ experiences of the participants. This study has adopted the phenomenological approach under the qualitative research method. The study is conducted in places that are relatively quiet for recording and is suitable and convenient for both the researchers and participants. The researchers gathered data through in-depth interview where they used cellphones to record the interview proper. The study is done through snowball sampling technique. At the end of the thematic analysis procedure, the researchers came up with three major categories which included: having the opportunity to know the industry well and improve one‘s capability; undergoing different cultural exchange experiences for better development; and being able to practice intercultural immersion. Some of the researchers‘ recommendations would be to institute a feedback mechanism such as personal interviews, monitoring visits, etc. and use the output which is a set of guidelines that would help the future Work and Travel participants to prepare and anticipate the program they would undergo.