Practical innovation ability index system of postgraduate in tourism management, China

The rapid development of global tourism urgently needs practical and innovative talents, and the cultivation of postgraduate students majoring in tourism management (PSTMs) is especially critical. This study employed the three core concepts of field, capital, and habitus from Bourdieu’s Social Practice Theory as its theoretical framework. It preliminarily constructed a practical innovation ability index system for PSTMs, and used analytic hierarchy process and fuzzy comprehensive evaluation to research and analyze 231 postgraduates from universities offering master’s degree in tourism management in Hunan Province, China. The results indicated that the overall practical innovation ability of PSTMs was 84.27, which falls under ‘relatively satisfactory’. For our three main criteria, the scores for practice field, practice capital, and practice habitus were 82.88 (lowest), 84.62, and 84.69 (highest), respectively. Among the 18 indicators, indicators such as on-campus tutors’ guidance and the quality of the teaching of cases had significant positive effects on PSTMs’ practical innovation ability. Our results also highlighted problem areas, such as insufficient guidance by off-campus tutors and inadequate on-campus and off-campus practice bases. Based on the findings, we also proposed multi-stakeholder collaborative optimization recommendations to further enhance the cultivation of PSTMs’ practical innovation ability.