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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Trends of Health & Wellness Tourism

Health and wellness tourism is now an international trend set by the health conscious consumers seeking to enhance their well being through their travel experiences. This type of consumer seeks to look and feel better, to lose weight, to slow the effects of aging, to relieve pain or discomfort, to manage stress, or to partake in the use of natural supplements like vitamins and minerals to improve and enhance their health.

Resorts and hotels are joining the health spa development craze, although only some resorts are moving into the scope of services currently offered by destination spas. A distinction is made between the health and the wellness aspects.Health tourism refers to those clients with medical conditions who would travel to experience healing therapies. A person who seeks a wellness travel experience, is generally healthy to start with, and seeks therapies to maintain thewell being.

The spa industry segment is regarded as the leading player in health and wellness tourism. In searching for health and wellness travel experiences, travelers can find structured and professionally-delivered programsat several types of spa venues. These include:

Mineral Springs Spa: A spa offering on-site natural mineral, thermal, or sea water, which is used in professionally administered hydrotherapy treatments. This spa typifies the European spa product offering focusing on health and wellness.

Resort/Hotel Spa: This category represents the second largest group of spa facilities in North America. The majority have been or are being developed where the spa is a profitable amenity added to traditional resort vacation opportunities.

In India, with its pool of highly trained and specialised doctors, good healthcare infrastructure facilities, relatively lower cost of treatment and availability of alternative forms of treatment such as Ayurveda, Yoga, Siddha, and Naturopathy is seeing strong growth in health  tourism.

Wellness tourism

Wellness tourism is regarded as a sub-segment of health tourism.  The primary purpose is achieving, promoting or maintaining good health and a sense of well-being. India with widespread presence of Ayurveda, Yoga, Siddha, and Naturopathy, complemented by its spiritual philosophy, is a well-known wellness destination. Wellness tourism includes ayurvedic therapies, spa visits, and yoga meditation. 

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Travel, Hospitality & Aviation Sector: Overview

Tourism as an industry has been traveling with the wild pace of technological advancements and aboard are people from different places and cultures interacting with increasing ease .Since, the globe had been shrunk into a village.

Unlike our predecessors, we can affordably and in a shorter time travel across the world in large numbers comparatively safe. Tourism being one of the biggest and fastest growing industries globally, its benefits and the challenges, keenly observed by governments affects the economic, socio-cultural, environmental and educational resources of nations.

The hospitality industry is much broader than most other industries. The majority of business niches are composed of only a handful of different businesses, but this industry applies to nearly any company that is focused on customer satisfaction and meeting leisurely needs rather than basic ones. While this industry is very broad, there are some defining aspects that are important to understand.

One of the most defining aspects of this industry is that it focuses on customer satisfaction. While this is true of nearly every business, this industry relies entirely on customers’ being happy. This is because these businesses are based on providing luxury services. Very few hospitality businesses provide a basic service that people need, like food or accommodation.

Another defining aspect of this industry is its reliance on disposable income and leisure time. For this reason, the majority of these businesses are for tourists or rich patrons. If disposable income decreases due to a slump or recession, then these are often the first businesses to suffer because customers won’t have the extra money to enjoy their services.

Transport is another essential element of tourism, providing the vital link between the tourist generating areas and destinations. Good accessibility, which is determined by the transport services provided, is a fundamental condition for the development of any tourist destination. Moreover, the transport industry can be a major beneficiary of tourism because of the additional passenger demand that may be generated. Aviation is an increasingly important mode of transport for tourism markets. 

Whilst geography has meant that, in modern times, air travel has always been the dominant mode for long distance travel and much international tourism, moves towards deregulation, and in particular the emergence of the low cost carrier sector, have also increased aviation's significance for short and medium haul tourism trips.

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