A
Hotel Management
Qualification
The
hospitality industry has been claimed to be a people-centric
industry, where its management success and failure
revolves around the management of people, particularly
interactions between guests and staff.
There is an indicator, which acknowledges the success
or failure of such organisations, it is the high level
of skills and training of the staff that work in such
an industry.
Educational
programs for hotel management is not only a career
choice but also a fruitful experience. This is evident
if one considers the wide range of topics that students
are learning in the hospitality programs. Starting
from the front office operations, accounting management,
food and beverage, marketing, human resources and
tourism. Inevitably such a diversity of topics make
the learning process for a hotel management diploma
or a degree a rewarding experience. Students that
are joining such programs will benefit not only of
having a qualification hut also of obtaining a wide
range of knowledge across different disciplines.
Ambition
& values
Often when students are graduating from a hotel management
degree or diploma program will say that they will
like to become hotel general managers. Their reason
is purely on the ambition that they have to succeed
as well as of the values that they obtain while they
were studying for such qualification. What is critical
here is that an educational program needs to build
these ambitions of the students from a qualified faculty
that they are in a cutting edge of the industry or
academia. Students will then look up to their educators
and will then build their own careers based on the
experiences that they gain while they are studying
A broad range of topics
On a day to day basis in a hotel environment, decisions
often need to be made fast. Those decisions can involve
anything from purchasing new equipment up to training
the staff Hotel managers without any prior knowledge
of such topics will often make a mistake or a bad
decision that will cost the operation not only in
financial terms but most importantly in reputation.
How many times we hear stories or cases of things
that did not go well and how many times we learn from
the hospitality industry that failures occurred because
of a lack of knowledge of the market that they were
going to invest.
Cultural
awareness & knowledge of the global market
In
turn, what educational programs for a hotel management
qualification do offer are cultural awareness as well
as knowledge of the global market. While students
are studying for such qualification they obtain knowledge
of the hotel markets across the globe, which in turn
helps them to seek employment in any part of the world.
A
career in the hotel industry
Overall, studying for a hotel management qualification
is a rewarding experience not only for the reasons
that were mentioned above, but also because it opens
the doors to a career in the hotel industry. As the
industry grows in terms of its economic importance
so do the programs that they do offer education for
such a career. What it is important for a successful
career in such an industry is that the choice of such
program needs to be right. Inevitably, educational
programs need to reflect the changes in the global
market and they need to be updated regularly so that
student will gain an insight of the industry while
they are studying.
As
a result, a good education program in a hotel management
will make students professional managers embodied
with the spirit of teamwork, the spirit of solidarity
and the spirit of service.
by
Dr Dimitrios Diamantis, Lecturer in Tourism and Hospitality;
Swiss Hotel Association Hotel Management School Les
Roches, Switzerland
