Prepectives and Preparation of International Institutions towards AEC: A comparative study on selected Tourism and Hospital Educational instittutions in Bangkok

Today, tourism and hospitality is a well-attended field among Thai citizens. A large number of educational institutions exist to provide academically with degree levels usually ranging from undergraduate, post-graduate, to doctorate, and with ultimate goal to serve the industry. However, it is a new focus and challenge now that the emergence of ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) will debut on 31 December 2015 and would certainly affect as well as influence the educational and professional spheres given that Thailand has great potential to serve as a trade and investment hub, and Bangkok is considered a center of tourism and hospitality business in Asia. This research accordingly has been conducted to find out how international tourism and hospitality institutions in Bangkok prepare themselves regarding areas such as academic curricular and training programs to produce their graduates to serve the industry and the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC) inception. Only qualitative methods were adopted throughout research, and semi-structured interview was selected to be the most effective option for research data collection. A list of open-ended questions was prepared and adjustable as appropriate during the interview process with the faculty members of total eight leading institutions participated in this research that the researcher approached. The results of this research indicate the key findings that each institution has their own view towards the emergence of the ASEAN Economic Community (AEC). The majority of the respondents have "positive" thoughts that there will be more advantages than disadvantages for both education and business sectors in Thailand "negative" thoughts that the country is not ready especially in terms of competency and internal system or situation. Nevertheless, all institutions have the same goals towards academic preparation---they do prepare themselves, including their faculty members and graduates for this uniting and collaborating of ASEAN nations.