The quality and professionalism perception of hospitality/tourism graduates on the important skills needed in the world of hospitality/tourism work and that of hospitality/tourism education is a matter of great debate. Tourism & Hospitality and tourism students in Nigeria have to consider carefully their career planning in order to comply with the demands of the industry's competitive environment. Although, tourism and hospitality educators have begun to focus on bridging the gap between the acquired knowledge of hospitality graduates and the skills expectations of the industry, few studies have dealt with attributes for the overall employability of graduates from the perspectives of industry managers. Though Curriculum assessment has been an important tool in measuring the effectiveness of the curriculum to evaluate student learning and preparedness, this paper investigates the perceptions of industry managers of employability in the industry. A conceptual framework was developed, based on course offerings and descriptions of the Hospitality and Tourism Management Program at Tertiary Institutions in Nigeria, to evaluate how the curriculum contributes to students' preparedness for their future career. Using an online field survey, it examines the skills that contribute to students' preparedness. Besides the findings indicating that from the perspectives of industry managers, both students and graduates lack confidence in their employability, particularly in areas of professional management skills, it revealed that communication skill, multi-lingual, operational skills and skills in computing are the most prominent skills that are needed to fit into the industry. However, graduates are unable to deliver owing to inadequate possession of the generic skills which impede their performance in the industry. There are also no evidence of government interventions to drive education- industry research collaboration for the tourism and hospitality and tourism industry, despite its undoubted importance to the Nigerian economy. Suggestions are provided for facilitating the employability of hospitality graduates in Nigeria while addressing the 'low skills' economy which tourism and hospitality represents. It draws upon the work of Noon & Blyton (1995) in applying their approach to the classification and analysis of skills within tourism and hospitality and also draws on Ashton & Green's (1996) critique of vocational education as a basis for understanding some of the problems inherent in skills development in tourism and hospitality. Finally, it addresses the skills debate in tourism and hospitality in four key theme areas: the nature of work and skills in tourism and hospitality; de-skilling within the tourism and hospitality and tourism workplace; the technical/generic skills debate within tourism and hospitality; skills and the education/training process in tourism and hospitality. It is highly recommended however that, there should be a close collaboration between the educators and the industry players so that students leave school knowing industry expectation.