RESUMO
This study highlights the major challenges faced by hotel interns in their career development and the human resource management of hotels in the current macroeconomic environment, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic. The paper developed a conceptual model for organizational identification, turnover intention, and perceived alternative job opportunities in the context of hotel internships. A total of 350 samples were collected from hotel internships in Macau. The presented results indicate that organizational identification has a significant negative impact on turnover intention. In addition, alternative job opportunities do not moderate the relationship between organizational identification and turnover intention. The results also showed that females had a higher level of evaluative identification for hotel internships compared to males. In addition, interns from high-income families had a higher level of evaluative identification compared to those from low- and middle-income families. The theoretical contribution extends the concept of organizational socialization to include internship stages in the field of hospitality management. Finally, this paper proposes measures for managing hotel internships during the COVID-19 pandemic.