An Empirical Study of Intercultural Communicative Competence: A Case Study of Hospitality Higher Education in China

The study aims to explore the stakeholders’ perception towards intercultural communicative competence (ICC) in hospitality higher education and examine what ICCs are important to graduates in their career development. In-depth interview and content analysis are adopted and 10 ICC items are found to represent ICC in hotel schools in China. In order to investigate what ICCs are important to graduates in their career development, descriptive statistics and one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) with a post-hoc Scheffe test were conducted. Discussion and recommendations are provided to hospitality undergraduates, educators, and employers in China. From graduates’ perspective, the study may help them improve their ICC learning at schools for better advancement in their future careers. From educators’ perspective, it may provide a better understanding from the stakeholders’ perceptions when integrating cultural elements with communicative competence in hospitality education, and prepare qualified students. From employers’ perspective, ICC can be a valuable tool when recruiting quality graduates. A greater understanding of ICC contributes to graduates’ career development, universities’ curriculum validation, and service quality in hospitality industry. 

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