This article investigates the relevance of the National Certificate Vocational (NCV) tourism programme for the South African tourism industry in terms of skills needed by tourism students to work in the tourism industry after graduating. The NCV programmes were introduced in 2007 at public Further Education and Training Colleges (now Technical, Vocational Education and Training Colleges), with the phasing out of certain national technical education (NATED) Report 191 programmes, known as N-Programmes. Research was conducted in the form of an empirical questionnaire survey. A mixed methods approach, using a quantitative and qualitative methodology, was employed to gather relevant data. The results suggest that NCV tourism students are employable in small, medium-sized and microenterprises once they graduate, but that graduates need more experience and practical knowledge to be employable in the wider tourism labour market. The results indicate that more relevant NCV tourism curricula are needed to make the qualification of greater applicability to the South African tourism industry.