TITLE:
Employability as Interpretive and Mediating Capability—A Dual-Dimensional Model for Tourism Graduates Integrating Cultural Identity and Technical Competence
AUTHORS:
Qingfeng Song, Cheng Qian, Ruidong Wei
KEYWORDS:
Graduate Employability, Tourism Education, Interpretation, Cultural Identity, Digital Mediation, Heritage Tourism, Platformisation
JOURNAL NAME:
Open Journal of Applied Sciences,
Vol.15 No.12,
December
25,
2025
ABSTRACT: Graduate employability in tourism is frequently reduced to transferable generic skills and short-term employment outcomes. Such framings fit poorly with tourism work in heritage- and memory-oriented destinations, where graduates are evaluated through their ability to produce credible meanings and mediate visitor experiences rather than merely execute tasks. This conceptual paper reconceptualises tourism graduate employability as a dual-dimensional capability architecture composed of cultural identity capability and technical competence. Drawing on employability theory, tourism interpretation scholarship, heritage and authenticity debates, and platform mediation research, the paper theorises a coupling mechanism in which cultural identity capability stabilises interpretive legitimacy and motivational resilience, while technical competence amplifies reach, engagement, and experiential coherence across mediated environments. Crucially, employability is argued to emerge from the interaction of these two capabilities rather than their additive accumulation. The paper specifies boundary conditions, failure modes, and an operationalisation pathway suitable for indicator-system construction, measurement, and curriculum alignment. The contribution is a tourism-specific employability model that is assessable, teachable, and transferable across domains where interpretive labour and mediated storytelling are central.