Do tourism and hospitality students in VET courses in Australia get occupational status gains?

Tertiary education institutions aim to produce job-ready graduates, but mismatches between student competencies and employer expectations are well-documented in tourism and hospitality (e.g., Cortadas-Guasch, 2024). These disparities May arise from evolving industry demands outpacing training programs or lack of alignment with the practical skills required for employment. For instance, Chinese hospitality graduates face "occupational stigma," deterring entry into hotel careers (Lv et al., 2023), while high attrition rates in the tourism and hospitality point to broader issues of job satisfaction and career retention. Despite these insights, little is known about longitudinal occupational gains for tourism/hospitality VET graduates or their comparative standing against other VET graduates globally and within Australia. Post-COVID-19 recovery has further complicated labor dynamics, with rapid employment rebounds in Australia but ongoing questions about the sector's attractiveness to skilled workers (Fieger et al., 2025).