Study Overseas

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.

Author:

Dr Dimitrios Diamantis, Lecturer in Tourism and Hospitality;
Swiss Hotel Association

Hotel Management School Les Roches, Switzerland