The role and importance of internship programs as part of formal education: Students' perceptions: The case of college of tourism

As one of the fastest growing industries tourism is in increasing need for well educated and skillful employees on both operational and managerial level. Institutions of higher education are requested by tourism industry to produce quality human resources able to respond immediately to their needs and to be involved in working processes as fast as possible with low or without any additional costs for future employees' initial job training. With inclusion of training and internship programs into, primarily vocational, but also, into bachelor studies students will be trained for their future jobs through real business situations and environment. This paper focuses on students' perceptions of internship and training programs as part of their formal education. Through analysis of the survey distributed among students of the College of Tourism it will be shown how students perceive the internship programs and importance of these programs for their future employment. Also, it will be shown the level of their satisfaction with tourism companies where they are performing internship programs and the level of their satisfaction with activities of the College of Tourism in communications during the internship, program management and implementation of the internship programs.