Accreditation in Tourism and Hospitality Undergraduate Education in the ASEAN context: the Case of Thailand from the Ted Qual Perspective

One of the most important developments in tourism and hospitality education in the last decades has been the implementation of institutional and programmatic international accreditation systems to support and ensure the competitiveness and excellence levels of the education centres and the study paths they offer. Institutions in the ASEAN region can (and should) opt for these international accreditations if they aim to take profit of the various advantages they offer, but how prepared are its centres nowadays to obtain these types of certifications? In order to answer this question, the aim of this paper is to examine and critically analyse the present situation of tourism and hospitality undergraduate programs in Thailand, as an example of the ASEAN context. To carry out this evaluation, a questionnaire was directed to executive staff at the institutions offering undergraduate international programs in Thailand, and to the alumni of those institutions, based on the guidelines of the UNWTO TedQual certification. The findings of this research show that despite the overall positive result (form the perspective of both the alumni and the university staff) there are some aspects which are subject to improvements in order to enhance the performance of the programs and their possibilities of being certified with international accreditations in tourism and hospitality.