High Turnover of College Graduates in Hotel Industry in China and Its Countermeasures

In order to meet the needs of ever-increasing business travelers and leisure travelers, more and more large hotels have been built across China, and Chinese government has been promoting tourism and hospitality education to provide a sufficient and qualified workforce for tourism and hospitality industry since 1990s. Though as many as 181,923 students majoring in hospitality administration graduated from 852 colleges and universities in China in 2009, hotel industry still suffers from staff shortage. One reason is the high turnover rate of college graduates in hotel industry. Although high turnover rate of college graduates is considered to be a major problem in the hotel industry, there is little research examining its influence on the establishment and the reasons behind their decision to stay or leave. This study attempts to address this deficiency by studying a sample of five hotels ranging from three-star to five-star in China. The results indicate that there is an enormous amount of cost involved when losing and replacing an employee with college education, and it may cause service quality to decline and less repeat business. Employees with college education leave their employer mainly because of lack of career opportunities, low pay and the way they are treated etc. Based on these findings various HR strategies are formulated, which have wider implications for the turnover management of college graduates in hotel industry in China.