The study aims to delineate the factors affecting the behavioral intentions of hotel interns of the reputed Institute of Hotel Management (IHMs). Also, the study intends to identify the association between future career intentions and word of mouth taking students’ satisfaction during the internship as a mediating factor into consideration. To achieve this, a descriptive cross-sectional design was adopted and data were collected from 140 Indian students recently finished their hotel internship. The proposed claims were tested through Structural Equation Modeling (SEM). Findings claim no direct influence of service quality of the internship on the career intentions of the hotel interns. However, hotel internship service quality has an adverse impact on the word of mouth of interns. Further, the satisfaction of interns mediates positively between these two variables, thereby negating the direct adverse effect and depicting competitive mediation. The results may facilitate both hotels and IHMs to design and schedule an effective internship program to bridge the gap between the expected and available skilled manpower for the hotels. © 2021 Informa UK Limited, trading as Taylor & Francis Group.
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