HOTEL MANAGEMENT
INSTITUTE OF HOTEL MANAGEMENT, CATERING & NUTRITION
New Delhi
The hospitality industry is today abuzz with hype about the tremendous employment and travel opportunities that exist in this sector. The sector is attracting the curiosity of parents and guardians of students faced with the challenge of choosing a course for themselves. Let us begin by first understanding what is hospitality and then try to explore the prospects of the industry that revolve around it. The Cambridge English Dictionary describes hospitality as the act of being friendly and welcoming to guests and visitors, and also the food, drink, entertainment etc. that an organisation provides for guests or business partners. On a closer scrutiny, hospitality appears to be an attitude that anticipates the needs of others and places the needs of other people above one’s own. Hospitality as a profession is perhaps as old as human civilisation. And the future of this profession goes beyond anybody’s imagination.
This industry caters to the basic necessities of human beings, which are of food, shelter and entertainment. Any industry providing these needs has to sustain in both rain and shine but the prosperity of the people providing them in a situation of unprecedented growth in the economy could be anyone’s envy. Looking at the size of the industry currently, in terms of turnover, barring the oil industry, it is the largest one. And, globally, if we consider the employment it generates, there is no industry that comes even close to it. It is the backbone of many economies of the world and there is no country which does not wish to nurture it.
Traditionally, it’s not been an industry that attracted the best of talent in our country until perhaps recently due to the unsocial hours of work and the non-lucrative starting salaries that the industry offered.
With both issues being addressed by the industry, the situation is changing for the better. Let us now explore the desirable attributes to be successful in this industry. While the skill sets may vary from one job role to the other—for example, a chef may require skills different from those of a barman or a concierge—the common qualities for all positions in the hospitality sector are high levels of grooming and image projection skills, effective communication skills, empathy, problem-solving skills, a ‘can do’ attitude and, most importantly, the ability to handle pressure without losing one’s composure.
All these attributes can be cultivated by anybody attending a professional institution where the aspirants cultivate these qualities by following the examples around them.
Career openings to graduates of various hospitality programmes are available at various levels in the hierarchy of hospitality organisations; the most coveted position naturally being that of a management trainee leading to a manager’s role. The most sought after quality for such a position is entrepreneurship skill in a person. One may wonder why a person with entrepreneurship skill would look for a job. The truth is that the quality in a person to take ownership of his job role is very important. A person may be hired by a company in the job role of a restaurant manager or a business centre manager, in this role the person must act like an entrepreneur and make the entire business plan, as if he is the owner of the business. He must not leave anything to chance or the expert care of his superior or someone who is specialised in a certain aspect of the business like finance or human resources. This person has to take 360 degree ownership of the business and push his boundaries to deliver the expected results. Exploring this quality further would mean that the person is always in a learning mode and does not repeat his mistakes. Grooming such a person is what differentiates a leader institution from the rest.
Honing the entrepreneurial qualities is a challenging job for any academic institution. The Institute of Hotel Management, Catering & Nutrition, Pusa, New Delhi, which is the premier hospitality institute it the country, has managed to cultivate these qualities in its students by exposing them to business-like situations in the institute itself. The institute has developed a number of students’ societies like the dramatic society called ‘Panchtatv’, the eco club called TRAS (Think Responsible Act Sustainable), the music society called ‘Asavari’, and a writers’ club. There are a number of other societies and clubs constituted on ad hoc basis to take care of events like the food festivals in mega events such as ‘Bharat Parv’ or ‘Paryatan Parv’. The students are free to take decisions while carrying out the work of these societies. The entire event—right from concept development, team formation to financing, hiring of vendors, decoration and catering—is organised by the students. They have to overcome the hurdles posed at every stage and live up with the tantrums of the craftsmen and labour at every stage. This is how students develop skills to work in teams, understand group dynamics and conflict resolution mechanisms in such an environment.
Besides natural choices like hotels, airlines and restaurants, there are so many other areas of the economy where hospitality professionals are in great demand for the above mentioned qualities. Let me give examples of the industries or businesses that have hired a large number of hospitality graduates. An unprecedented demand has been observed in facility management, healthcare sector, travel/ restaurant and hotel services aggregators and retail chains. These sectors have outbid the traditional hospitality recruiters to acquire the best talent from the hospitality schools.
The other source where a lot of demand for people of our country is going to come is regions with dwindling birth rates like the north European countries, Scandinavia, Germany or from prosperous countries in Asia like Japan or Korea. It
is believed that with the population aging in these countries, thousands of immigrants would be required to sustain these economies in the next few decades. So, global careers are assured for people with ambition and skills for them.
Another strong demand is emanating from global brands which have realised that hospitality is the real differentiator in upscale products and services. There is scope of hospitality professionals finding opportunities in the unchartered sectors like lifestyle product sales, retail stores, banking, healthcare, insurance, and accounting. The rapid expansion in existing areas is going to offer unprecedented scope for career growth and emergence of new titles, and positions with matching compensations, which the world has not heard before.
To conclude, I would go back to the initial argument of this article. With the rise in the financial and social status of people employed in the hospitality industry improving and the opportunity of global exposure associated with this profession, the sector is going to rise to the top of the chart of preferred careers. Young men and women of present times are fortunate to have an array of opportunities in front of them.