Careers in the hospitality industry

From the renaissance era to modern era of 21^st century the inception of the hospitality concept surfaced and became a commercial endeavor. Now it’s not limited to just a room and board, the industry has morphed into a multitrillion dollar global enterprise.

 The hospitality industry encompasses primarily of lodging, food service, and travel and tourism sector. The lodging segment includes hotels, motels, casinos, resorts, bed and breakfast operations. The food service operations consists of quick service restaurants, institutional food service operations, full-service restaurants, lodging food service just to name a few. The travel and tourism sector includes airlines, cruise lines, tour operations, and tourist bureaus. Other areas of the hospitality industry include event venues, conference and convention centers, consulting firms, and clubs.

Before intruding into industry one need to be clear about industry, its work culture and most important about one’s own personality that will he/she be able to cope up with things?

• Are you ready to take the plunge in the hospitality industry?
• Do you have a vibrant, outgoing, and upbeat personality?
• Do you have the drive and energy to persevere?
• Are you a leader?
• Are you a team player?

Do you feel a sense of fulfillment when extending a helping hand to others?

Do you enjoy meeting people from different walks of life?

Do you love to travel?

Do you acclimatize well to change?

There are some of the necessary personality traits, skills, and qualities to thrive in this line of work. No two days are alike in the hospitality industry; each day brings an array of challenges. Hospitality employees strive to anticipate customer needs, exceed expectations, and pursue excellence. These service qualities are vital for hospitality professionals to exude in the field.

·        There are numerous career choices in the hospitality industry. Typically, entry level positions are procured in operations. A lodging sector entry level position may be attained in front office or food and beverage operations. These positions are also available in other areas such as sales and marketing, sales and catering, finance and accounting, or human resource departments.

·   Middle management opportunities in the lodging and food service sector include executive positions, and typically are titled Assistant Manager or Supervisor.

·        In recent years, there is a growing demand for nouveau careers within the industry; titles such as revenue managers, asset managers, real estate developers, sustainability managers, event planners, search engine optimization and social media specialists are on the rise. 

·        Climbing up the career ladder from middle management to upper management positions means attaining a job title, namely, a Director, General Manager, Chief Financial Officer, Vice President or even President. These positions require a number of years of work experience. Planning, coordinating, communicating, and directing, controlling and decision making are management skills expected of most middle and senior managers.

So, hospitality sector opens a wide range of job opportunities from graduates to post graduates, from fresher’s to experienced in this perennial industry.

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TOURISM: Indian Scenario

The other attractions include beautiful beaches, forests and wild life and landscapes for eco-tourism; snow, river and mountain peaks for adventure tourism; technological parks and science museums for science tourism; Centers of pilgrimage for spiritual tourism; heritage, trains and hotels for heritage tourism. Yoga, Ayurveda and natural health resorts and hill stations also attract tourists.

The Indian handicrafts particularly, Jewels, carpets, leather goods, ivory and brass work are the main shopping items of foreign tourists. It is estimated through survey that nearly forty per cent of the tourist expenditure on shopping is spent on such items.

Despite the economic slowdown, medical tourism in India is the fastest growing segment of tourism industry, according to the market research report “Booming Medical Tourism in India”. The report adds that India offers a great potential in the medical tourism industry. Factors such as low cost, scale and range of treatments provided in the country add to its attractiveness as a medical tourism destination.

Initiatives to Boost Tourism: Some of the recent initiatives taken by the Government to boost tourism include grant of export house status to the tourism sector and incentives for promoting private investment in the form of Income Tax exemptions, interest subsidy and reduced import duty. The hotel and tourism-related industry has been declared a high priority industry for foreign investment which entails automatic approval of direct investment up to 51 per cent of foreign equity and allowing 100 per cent non-resident Indian investment and simplifying rules regarding the grant of approval to travel agents, tour operators and tourist transport operators.

 Future Prospects: According to the latest Tourism Satellite Accounting (TSA) research, released by the World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) and its strategic partner Oxford Economics in March 2009:

•The demand for travel and tourism in India is expected to grow by 8.2 per cent between 2010 and 2019 and will place India at the third position in the world.

•India's travel and tourism sector is expected to be the second largest employer in the world, employing 40,037,000 by 2019.

•Capital investment in India's travel and tourism sector is expected to grow at 8.8 per cent between 2010 and 2019.

•The report forecasts India to get capital investment worth US$ 94.5 billion in the travel and tourism sector in 2019.

•India is projected to become the fifth fastest growing business travel destination from 2010-2019 with an estimated real growth rate of 7.6 per cent.

The major constraint in the development of tourism in India is the non-availability of adequate infrastructure including adequate air seat capacity, accessibility to tourist destinations, accommodation and trained manpower in sufficient number.

Poor visitor experience, particularly, due to inadequate infrastructural facilities, poor hygienic conditions and incidents of touting and harassment of tourists in some places are factors that contribute to poor visitor experience.

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Travel & Tourism- A Sunrise Sector

The Indian Tourism and Hospitality Industry has emerged as one of the key drivers of growth among the services sector in India. Travel and tourism has become one of the pillars in the growth of GDP of the country. Tourism in India is a potential game changer. It is a sun rise industry, an employment generator, a significant source of foreign exchange for the country and an economic activity that helps local and host communities. Travel & Tourism sector contributes 7% to the Indian GDP & 8% to the total employment of country. India is a tourism product which is unparalleled in its beauty, uniqueness, rich culture and history has been aggressively pursuing the promotion of tourism both internationally as well as in the domestic market.

Indian tourism industry is thriving due to an increase in foreign tourist arrivals and greater number of Indians travelling to domestic destinations than before. In the past few years the real growth has come from the domestic sector as during 2014 India witnessed foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs)  of 74.62 lakh compared to 68.48 Lakhs FTA in 2013. India is at 41^st rank in terms of international tourism across the globe.

Travel and tourism sector’s contribution to capital investment is projected to grow at 6.5 per cent per annum during 2013-2023, above the global average of five per cent. The Ministry of Tourism promotes the country’s various tourism products through its tactile campaigns under the Incredible India brand- both for international as well as domestic markets. The budget allocated for the Domestic Promotion & Publicity and Overseas Promotion & Publicity including Marketing Development stood at INR 1.1 billion (USD 17.73 million) and INR 3.5 billion (USD 56.41 million) for the financial year 2013-14.

To quote figures about hospitality industry, 1.30 lakh hotel rooms are needed to cater to the projected 5m tourists this year, while the country today has only 84,000 operational rooms. Overall out of aviation, tourism & hospitality industry, hospitality sector has maximum job opportunities followed by aviation & tourism sector respectively. 

for more information visit travel and tourism institute