The Importance of Needs Analysis in Teaching English for Specific Purposes: A Tourism and Hospitality Context

Needs analysis is a central component of English for Specific Purposes (ESP) because it helps course designers identify the language, skills, and communicative tasks learners require in their academic or professional environments. This article examines the role of needs analysis in designing an ESP course for tourism and hospitality learners in an educational-center context. The project involved 18 adult learners aged 21–32 whose English proficiency was estimated at A2–B1 on the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR). The group included six tourism-management students and learners employed in hotels and travel agencies. A needs-analysis process was described using questionnaires, semi-structured interviews, classroom observations, and a diagnostic assessment of the four language skills in tourism-related situations. The identified priorities included speaking and listening with international guests, understanding tourism-specific vocabulary and different English accents, handling complaints politely, providing travel information, and writing professional emails and booking confirmations. These priorities informed the course objectives, materials, classroom tasks, and assessment. The article argues that using multiple sources of information can help ESP practitioners avoid relying on assumptions and create a more coherent relationship between learners’ needs and course design. Because the project is based on a course-design assignment and does not report detailed quantitative instrument data, the findings are presented as context-specific needs-analysis outcomes rather than statistically generalizable results.