Entrepreneurial Characteristics and Aspirations Influencing Career Choice in Tourism Family Businesses

Family background often influences a person’s career choice. The purpose of this study is to examine whether students originating from family businesses in the tourism sector have different entrepreneurial characteristics and aspirations than students coming from family businesses in other sectors. The underlying assumption was that tourism students who come from tourism family businesses may, due to the specific nature of their business, be influenced in a different way regarding Bandura’s four behavior factors: locus of control1 , self-efficacy, independence and innovation. A balanced sample of 221 respondents surveyed was analyzed utilizing multi-nominal multivariate regression in order to distinguish three possible career path options: family business succession, founding one’s own business, or becoming a hired employee. The main finding is that there is a difference between the two groups in the internal locus of control perception. Tourism students express lower levels of start-up intent generated by the internal locus of control. They may find it difficult to believe that an internal locus of control is possible in the tourism business. Through this parameter, tourism students express a lack of self-confidence. Students raised in a family business environment are affected by the parent’s absence due to business matters. It can be argued that an offspring from families in the tourism business may be more exposed to this effect during their adolescence, which could explain the differences. The main implication is that there is a broader impact of family business background on individuals’ entrepreneurial character, including the specifics coming from the nature of the tourism business; therefore more attentention should be paid to this issue in the further research in entrepreneurship in tourism.