Relevance of academic research to hospitality practitioners

This mixed-methods study aimed to evaluate, from hospitality practitioners’ perspectives, the relevance of academic research to practice and the effectiveness of dissemination of research. Other objectives included exploring practitioners’ information sources and how academic research can reach a wider practitioner audience and make an impact on the industry. The quantitative results revealed that respondents’ most common sources of information were company and personal networks, and the least common sources were academic journals and conferences. Academic journal readership and interest in research collaboration remained low among practitioners. Yet they considered the prevalent hospitality and tourism research topics relevant. This conflicting result implies the need to review four main themes that emerged in the qualitative analysis—content, topic, accessibility, and method of academic research. The study also found associations between certain demographic characteristics and frequency of reading academic journals. Implications for hospitality education and program design are discussed.