Teaching German for special purposes, the case of tourism industry administration

Abstract

This thesis deals with the role of foreign languages and particularly German in the administration of tourism industry. It particularly addresses the importance of foreign languages competency for the success of a hospitality business as well as for a career in global hospitality by focusing on the fields of tourism administration education, recruiting, in service training and hospitality language evaluation. A combination of two surveys respectively addressing hotel managers and tourism administration students has been used to highlight the current situation in Greece and to explore future actions. The first questionnaire was built on the findings of the extensive international research taking under consideration the peculiarities of the Greek system. Its findings were used as the basis of the second questionnaire aiming to draw comparative results and viable suggestions. The findings demonstrate that Greek hospitality business representatives and students do understand the important role of foreign languages fluency and particularly listening comprehension and oral expression, however there are short comings in the quality these are offered. On one hand students are less satisfied by the training they receive on oral and intercultural skills, on the other managers tend not to offer in service training possibilities. Also the level of proficiency in German for tourism as a second foreign language, although highly evaluated by the managers, is not high enough, and nor is the acknowledgement of its importance by the students. The paper aims to bridge the gap between the real needs in foreign languages and German for the hospitality industry and the respective education offered in tourism administration institutes by highlighting the linguistic fields that need to be better attended and suggesting the collaboration of tourism business and education representatives towards the provision of a suitable foreign languages curriculum.