The tourism industry focuses on tourist service. Puerto Rico is an attractive destination in the Caribbean for its beautiful landscapes, the hospitality of its people, its culture, its cuisine, and its music. Universities in Puerto Rico are regulated by the Board of Postsecondary Institutions under Law 212 of 2018. Customer service is taught in 24% of the 34 academic programs focused on the tourism sector at the 14 universities authorized to operate in the country.

The study aims to determine the level of customer service competencies university students pursuing degrees in the tourism sector recognize as mastering. The study population is comprised of students from a university in Puerto Rico.

The study is non-experimental with an exploratory cross-sectional design. The sample is recruited through the Registrar's Office of the academy, which is responsible for sending the link to access the online questionnaire programmed in Microsoft Forms via institutional email. The study sample consisted of 258 students.

Data were collected online, which the study sample accessed using their private code from their educational institution.

The data collection instrument presents 27 statements about self-knowledge and five premises about personal data. The competencies under study are: Interpersonal Communication, Teamwork, Decision Making, Learning Capacity, Innovation and Creation, and Technology Management. The findings show that the most frequent statements are "Quite a bit" (35.56%) and "regular" (33.62%). By academic degree, the highest frequency was for technical certificate (50%) (quite a bit), associate degree (39%) (regular), bachelor’s degree (33%) (quite a bit), and master’s degree (44%) (regular).

It is concluded that in none of the academic degrees the students master customer service competencies at the maximum level of 5 (very much) and remain at level 3 (regular), as in the general sample. It is recommended that curricula in academic programs for the tourism sector be evaluated by a committee composed of tourism industry entrepreneurs and managers to update the curricula and include a customer service course based on the core competencies of this study.

Keywords: Tourism, assessment, competencies, customer service.