The Reasons of Why Tourism Undergraduate Students Choose the Departments of Tourism

In recent years, it has been seen that there are decreases and differences in the occupancy rates of the quotas which are related to tourism departments in the university. The aim of this study is to determine the reasons of preference of students who enroll in the 2018 YKS placement and who prefer the departments related to tourism. For this purpose, field survey was conducted to 406 students who were enrolled to Anadolu University, Osmangazi University, Adnan Menderes University and Gazi University Tourism Faculty. Survey is done during 1 November and 10 December 2018 period. According to results: 67,5% of the students who participated in the study they said they willingly chose this profession; 65,4% of the students who participated to survey, tourism was one of the first five choices for them to enroll university. Only 12,3% of the participants were graduated from tourism vocational high school. Students who graduated from a different kind of high school also preferred the tourism profession. In addtion, 44,8% of the participants stated that they consider the city factor is another reason why they selected tourism. In addition to frequency analysis, factor and reliability analyses have been done and findings have been included in the study. As a result, considering the reasons for the preference of the participants, the desire to work in the sector (33,3%) was the first. When the reasons of university preference are considered, city factor (44,8%) takes the first place