Enhancing self-efficacy to enable tourism microentrepreneurship: a quasi-experiment

This study evaluates the impact of a microentrepreneurship-focused pedagogical intervention in a college level tourism course aimed at increasing students’ tourism e-microentrepreneurial self-efficacy (TeMSE). Given that high entrepreneurial self-efficacy is associated with enterprise success, enhancing levels of TeMSE is warranted to grow a more just tourism economy in a sector largely controlled by profit-oriented large corporations. However, tourism and hospitality departments have largely neglected the importance of developing entrepreneurial potential, instead striving to service the corporate sector with a plug-and-play workforce. Conversely, we believe that the focus should be on equipping students with microentrepreneurial skills and abilities necessary to tap into the opportunities afforded by the burgeoning peer-to-peer economy. Accordingly, we developed a battery of hands-on learning tools to enhance students’ efficacy beliefs in their tourism entrepreneurial skills. Analysis of pre-post data suggests improvements only in the students’ efficacy to pursue innovation.