Training evaluation in tourism organizations : a new theoretical model

Abstract EN

Training and development of the workforce is critical for both organizational and societal growth.

Without evaluating training function within organizations, the training and development cannot effectively improve employee performance, demonstrate their value or receive critical feedback needed to improve its program offerings.

This paper aims to present an exploratory study of the evaluation of training programs and the develop a theoretical model for measuring the training effectiveness within tourism organizations.

Interview tools were used for collecting data from educational leaders and quality assurance leaders as well as training professionals within university tourism and hospitality higher education in Egypt.

The results indicate that while the pre-operational evaluation, learners’ reactions, and learning assessment are conducted within tourism and hotels faculties with low adoption, the training outcomes evaluation is not conducted for many reasons related to management perception, evaluation restrictions, methodological problems and little empirical evidence.

A theoretical model for training evaluation was developed based on a theoretical framework reviewing both tiie training literature and the strategic performance measurement (SPM) literature.

It is expected that the model will provide information that will help university tourism education as well as other tourism organizations to understand what are needed to evaluate training initiatives and to also better align resources and energy to training initiatives that produce results.