1. IntroductionWith the rapid growth of the hospitality and tourism (H&T) industries worldwide, there has been an increasing demand for tourism practitioners in various countries, which has led to the rapid development of tourism education [1]. There is no doubt that education plays a pivotal role in providing well-trained, qualified staff with a wide range of expertise, especially in the H&T industry [2]. A key issue facing the H&T industry is how to position itself as an ideal workplace for young people [3]. The problem of the H&T industry’s employment prospects has not been notably improved, and hospitality and tourism management (HTM) students’ willingness to stay in the industry is low; thus, H&T industries worldwide are facing distinct challenges in attracting and retaining talent [4,5]. Notably, it has been getting worse since the outbreak of COVID-19. The answer lies not only in escalating uncertainties and negative emotions about the H&T industries caused by the pandemic [6,7], but also in the mismatch of supply and demand between the industry and potential students [8]. Accordingly, identifying the factors that lead to low career intentions in the H&T industry and the high turnover rate of graduates that this has caused is a prerequisite for solving the dilemma of the talent shortage in the H&T industry [9]. It has become a concern for industries, destination marketing organizations (DMOs), and HTM education providers.Currently, many studies have tried to determine what factors affect students’ career intentions (CIs), willingness, and motivations, as well as how to improve them [10]. Student personality traits [11,12], curriculum and internship arrangements [3,13,14], job-related factors [5,15,16,17], parental support and help [18], the COVID-19 pandemic [6,7,19], and many other factors have a demonstrated relationship with students’ CIs. From these studies, at different times, it can be seen that many factors (e.g., salary, career prospects) have always been key factors affecting HTM students’ employment. However, differences and even opposing results exist about the relationship direction and strength of those same factors to students’ intentions, which might be caused by differences in samples, conditions, and other contexts. For example, while some studies have suggested the positive effects of salary on HTM students’ CIs [20], others found that this effect was negligible [5,14]. Chuang et al. [21] and Wang [22] proved the positive influence of outcome expectations on their students’ CIs, but a negative relationship was also obtained [23]. Indeed, a consensus regarding the strength and direction of the relationships cannot easily be reached, while a systematic overview of the factors affecting students’ intentions is lacking, as previous studies mostly focused on one aspect of them and their results are related to their specific context. Meanwhile, there are still specific doubts about the more important factors. Therefore, we should synchronize the overall effect of these factors into an integrated framework in order to eliminate the influence of research methods, cases, and backgrounds.This study aims to quantitatively draw comprehensive conclusions about the relationships between HTM students’ CIs and various influencing factors; a meta-analysis is employed for this purpose. By synthesizing the results of relevant studies, the meta-analysis systematically verifies the overall effect of the factors and eliminates the biases of and disagreements in existing studies [24]. Here, we not only test and compare the influences of various factors on students’ CIs, but also assess the differences in research contexts, including the sample’s grades and study time periods. It is hoped that the results can provide effective suggestions for universities, industries, and DMOs to amplify positive factors and overcome negatives to influence students’ perceptions of and satisfaction with the H&T industries and further enhance their CIs. 5. Discussion and ConclusionsThe viability and competitiveness of H&T enterprises are highly dependent on the stable workforce they employ [74]. One of the major aims for higher education institutions (HEIs) worldwide is to train talented professionals, playing a vital role in the H&T industries’ development [1]. Notwithstanding, the rapid growth of the H&T industries and the increasing scale of higher education in tourism and related majors do not go hand in hand. HTM students are less willing to be employed in it, thus leading to more brain-drain. This phenomenon has drawn the attention of scholars. Many studies have focused on students’ CIs and influencing factors, but their findings lack consistency and integration. After summarizing the selected 13 factors from the previous literature into four categories: work conditions, society identity, school education, and self-perception, we used a meta-analysis to integrate and compare these studies and quantitatively analyze the effects of influencing factors to seek systematic and integrated results. Furthermore, the relevant findings could provide implications for educators and industries to promote the intra-industry employment of HTM students.The meta-analysis results showed that, in comparison, self-perception factors had a more prominent impact on HTM students’ CIs. Among them, job satisfaction had the largest positive effect, and it reflects the overall positive perception and attitude that an individual has toward his or her job. While job satisfaction and organizational commitment are two closely related concepts, high job satisfaction is usually accompanied by high organizational commitment. Furthermore, from the commitment theory perspective, people committed to an organization are willing to maintain a long-term relationship with the organization [75]. Therefore, when students are satisfied with their work during practical experiences such as internships, their intentions to stay in the H&T industry after graduation are stronger. Regarding person–organization fit, Song and Chathoth [25] identified it as a key factor influencing CIs. This study further confirmed this point; that is, students who are coadapted to the industry are willing to be employed within it. As Carless [76] noted, individuals are more successful and retain their chosen line of work when their personality traits and values match their jobs. A good person–organization fit could lead to many positive attitudes and behaviors, such as job satisfaction, organizational commitment, and better performance, which further encourage workers to stay in the industry or the organization [45,48]. Here, self-efficacy is also confirmed to be related to students’ CIs, which is consistent with previous studies [7,41,44]. According to social cognitive theory, when an individual believes in his or her abilities to accomplish a task, he or she will be motivated to do it [77]. Moreover, self-efficacy could be treated as an antecedent of job satisfaction [44]. Moreover, our research showed that employability is also significantly related to CIs. The cultivation of students’ employability is highly dependent on their education; however, there is a general disconnect between HTM education and the employability skills that the industries require [13,78]. Thus, developing students’ employability has become a common concern for communities, educational institutions, and industries [47]. Last, this study found no significant impact of outcome expectations. This is unsurprising, as previous studies have recorded both positive and negative impacts from outcome expectations [22,23], possibly partly attributable to the different backgrounds of the subjects. The development of the H&T industry in different countries or regions is different, and there is a big gap in the ability of industry jobs to meet job seekers’ expectations [64]. Moreover, students from different countries or regions have different employment concepts. In developing countries, jobs with a stable environment and a higher social status are more sought after by students [79]. Their job expectations are generally high, with jobs in the H&T industries considered difficult to achieve. However, students in developed countries are more likely to value friendly communication between colleagues and corporate culture [3]. In addition, the limited literature available for this meta-analysis may also be influential, and a consensus cannot be easily attained.Correspondingly, HEIs plays an increasingly important role in forming students’ CIs and career decisions. Our results highlight the effects of education quality and internships. By directly affecting students’ mastery of professional knowledge, the development of employability and the formation of employment expectations further influence their willingness to stay in H&T [4]. Specifically, it is widely believed that higher education has a positive impact on students’ perceptions. The higher the perceived educational quality, the greater the academic self-efficacy of students, and the stronger their intentions to work in the industry [40]. Moreover, internships can provide students with a practical working scenario so that students can establish a clear understanding of the jobs. It confirmed that attitudes based on direct experience could better predict future behavior in H&T employment [15]. Notably, this study showed a weak correlation between internships and CIs, which is inconsistent with the increasingly important role of internship programs in students’ career development. The reason may lie in the different research contexts in the literature. Different cultural backgrounds might place differing emphasis on internships, while HEIs and enterprises have different arrangements for internships. The influence of social identity factors is partially confirmed. First, career prospects are closely related to the future development of students, and the identification of good prospects can help them build a higher industry commitment [5]. Nevertheless, HTM students and their relatives are generally not optimistic about the future of the H&T industry, resulting in a low willingness to work in it [1,15]. Hence, it is vital to shape a promising H&T industry in the minds of students and in society, which requires a joint effort between HEIs and industries. Meanwhile, we did not find a significant relationship between social status and CIs. This is possibly due to possible co-existing contradictions. One is that the social status of workers in the service industry, especially the H&T industry, is constantly improving with rapid development. With the government’s vigorous promotion and support of the H&T industry, people’s negative views of the industry are gradually disappearing; they believe work in this industry will be more respected and recognized in the near future [64]. The other is that people’s uncertainty and negative emotions about the H&T industries never dissipated, and in fact it became even worse after the pandemic’s outbreak [6,7]. In general, compared with self-perception factors, social identity factors have a weaker impact on students’ CIs, which is consistent with Armitage and Conner’s [80] views from the TPB. They pointed out that the subjective norm is generally found to be a weaker predictor of intention compared with the other two aspects.Furthermore, the factor of work conditions was shown to be associated with CIs. The match between actual work conditions and students’ expectations of them directly affect their overall satisfaction. It further affects their willingness to work in the industry [15]. However, except for environmental conditions, the impacts of the other three factors are not as great as expected and are weakly related to CIs. Some scholars have also pointed out there is no significant relationship between salary and students’ CIs [5,14]. This indicates that HTM students now pay less attention to salaries when making employment decisions and that non-monetary incentives are more likely to help the H&T industry attract and retain HTM graduates. In addition, even though our study showed that interpersonal relationships have a relatively small impact on CIs, the H&T sectors should focus on fostering interpersonal identity, as this can satisfy one’s social exchange needs and makes one feel a sense of belonging [20]. Similarly, for the nature of the work, which is closely related to perceived social status and career prospects [5], students considered it as a key desirable attribute for jobs in the H&T industry [15]. Therefore, despite the lower impacts, it should also be given attention.

The heterogeneity of each factor was partially moderated. Students with higher grades place a greater emphasis on the nature of the work, salary, interpersonal relationships, and internships in their career decision-making process, as they have more access to work practices and practical experiences will deepen their exposure to industry work, making them focus on specific working conditions. More importantly, the higher a student’s grades, the deeper their understanding of the HTM program, which increases their involvement and positive views of H&T. Meanwhile, the enhancement of self-efficacy reinforces their self-judgement. In contrast, students with lower grades might think more about environmental conditions, career prospects, and education quality. That might be due to having little knowledge of the realities of industry work; they might obtain most of their information from parents, relatives, and teachers. The opinions of the people around them of their career prospects will greatly influence their career plans after graduation.

Interestingly, the COVID-19 pandemic did not impact the relationships between the influencing factors and CIs in this study. The reason for this may be partially due to having limited studies in the literature that met our requirements, and they merely discussed a few variables. Otherwise, the pandemic triggered a series of students’ negative emotions about the H&T industry, such as anxiety, tension, fear, etc., which were then reinforced by the situation. Additionally, the emergence of revenge tourism in the post-epidemic era, as well as the prevalence of rural and nature tourism and technology-based tourism [81,82], will somewhat dissipate students’ concerns about future industry development, so the impact of the epidemic on their CIs is correspondingly weakened. The differences in the factors’ impacts are not statistically significant. However, this is not to say that H&T educational institutions do not need to provide coping responses to the pandemic. We also identified that the relationship between students’ self-efficacy and their intentions to work in the industry has changed a little. More importantly, it has affected students’ expectations and judgments of future career development in the industry, resulting in low self-efficacy [7]. The importance of high-quality education needs to further highlighted in maintaining student hope and retaining students in the context of the epidemic [6,19]. 6. Managerial Implication

Based on above conclusions, we propose some recommendations for HEIs and industries regarding the recruitment and maintenance of talent in the H&T industries.

6.1. Implications for HEIs

The results show that students’ self-perception and school education are more influential in shaping students’ intentions to work, while school experiences play a large role in forming students’ career perceptions. Therefore, HEIs are instrumental in promoting students’ employment intentions, and should actively take measures to improve the quality of their H&T education. At first, some basic guarantees should be ensured, including recruiting and training highly qualified educators, improving educational infrastructures, and offering reasonable and effective curriculum to coordinate and balance the following three relationships: theory and practice; major and foundation; and knowledge and ability. Second, HEIs should place greater emphasis on students’ employability. Employability includes both soft and hard skills. Hard skills related to professional knowledge can be achieved through quality courses, while soft skills, including communication skills, social ability, creativity, etc., could be obtained by providing extracurricular activities (e.g., sports, music), creating a variety of clubs, and encouraging students to actively participate. In addition, with the prevalence of COVID-19 pandemic, HTM students’ concerns about careers in the H&T industry after graduation have increased significantly, which can lead to serious career anxiety. Thus, HEIs should offer psychological guides to appease and regulate students’ negative mindsets, and help them establish psychological coping mechanisms. HEIs should also improve the technical equipment for online teaching during the epidemic and train teachers to ensure proper teaching. A feedback mechanism should also be established to keep track of students’ satisfaction with the course and their level of knowledge. Adequate student–teacher interactions during quarantines are very important. Meanwhile, HEIs should increase lessons on business-related knowledge (e.g., marketing, consumer psychology), and cultivating students’ ability to unite and cooperate, which are more important in the labor market after the pandemic. To further alleviate HTM students’ concerns about job hunting after graduation and job uncertainty, HEIs can offer career guidance courses, expert consultation sessions, and innovative alumni associations to build career networks for current students.

6.2. Implications for Industry

Our study also demonstrated an association between the factors of working conditions and students’ CIs. H&T industries should consider their roles and responsibilities in promoting students’ employment intentions. Internships are a way for students to experience the working conditions of the industry first-hand. HEIs should design and implement reasonable and effective internship programs to clearly show students actual working conditions and the job content of H&T industries to help students establish realistic job expectations; moreover, H&T sectors should actively cooperate with HEIs to create positive work experiences for students and increase their satisfaction and loyalty. They should place a higher value on internship programs, and design content, sessions, processes, etc. efficiently, in order to improve students’ actual working capacity and to directly expand their identity and cognition about the H&T industries. Furthermore, students usually learn about actual working conditions from other practitioners, so the establishment of alumni associations could expose them to views of practitioners within the industry. Only staff who feel valued and respected, as well as receive favorable treatment from their job have a sense of commitment and positively influence others, improving the industries’ social acceptance and recognition and subsequently promoting students’ intentions to stay in the H&T industries. Therefore, H&T companies should tangibly improve conditions for their staff, such as salaries, incentives, working environments, communication channels, and promotion opportunities. In addition, in response to the shock of the COVID-19 pandemic, H&T companies should try their best to appease the anxiety and dissatisfaction of employees and improve their resilience by implementing recognition programs as well as providing training for crisis management skills and job rotation opportunities for their employees.