Abstract

This study presents the findings of a survey conducted on first year tourism students at a university in Seoul about their second language awareness. Language is an important skill for tourism students to acquire for employment purposes, and many companies typically require one of three second languages to complement their mother-tongue, Korean. The second languages mainly sought by tourism companies for employment are English, Chinese, and/or Japanese. This study examines freshmen students’ awareness of the importance of second language learning for their future careers.