Abstract

As the events industry has expanded, along with the number of courses offered by the UK Higher Institutions, enhancing the curriculum of events management degrees has become the subject of debate. There is evidence suggesting that there is a gap between the employers’ expectations and graduates’ employability skills (Lee, Lee and Kim 2009; Beaven, George and Wright 2009). This paper presents the initial findings from an ongoing project investigating students’ employability skills on a number of courses related to service industries at a university in the south of England. It uses the data collected at the beginning of the academic year from the first year students on the Events Management degree to examine what skills students possess at the beginning of the course. Yet, there has been little known of such skills. This paper seeks to initiate a debate on the development of students’ employability skills within the curriculum.