Between the period of 2001 to 2022, there was a realisation within hospitality academia that skill training was no longer adequate

The lack of quality education in the hospitality sector leads to a corresponding scarcity of talented employees. Nowhere was this seen as prominently as in the last century ie the period between 1900 and 2000. The hotel, restaurant, tourism and services’ companies continued to complain about the availability and quality of employees. In terms of quality and quantity, graduate output was inadequate. Thus, the scarcity. The focus of education and curriculums was to train students in hard skills and service procedures so the topics frequently included:

•  Food knowledge
•  Soups, stocks meat cuts and cooking proce-dures
•  Service technique equipment etc
•  Front office, check-in, checkout, baggage hand-ling etc
•  Housekeeping, cleaning techniques and man-power rostering etc.

Though graduates from hotel management institutions were content-ready, the best hotel companies preferred attitude over knowledge. Now, this was an ideal example of working for cross-purposes and thus resulting in ‘scarcity’ of talent.

Between the period of 2001 to 2022, there was a realisation within hospitality academia that skill training was no longer adequate and that listening or learning to their clients was a key to good educational curriculum. Then started a debate: Who was the customer – the student who studies at the school, the parent who pays the tuition fees, the government or the licensing or accreditation agency or the customer of the industry who employs these graduates? The better institutions soon focussed on the employer as the end customer and the student as their product. Accordingly, curriculums were adapted and faculty asked to stay relevant with real examples of industry and case studies within their courses. Course topics which got added onto the past skill courses included human resource management, marketing, accounting and finance, revenue management and more. 

Despite this change being welcomed by the stakeholders, the hospitality industry still complained about ‘scarcity’ of talent. So, it was as an effortless exercise as the net result remained the same in the present phase of hospitality education. This ‘scarcity’ was further increased with labour loss experienced during the period of the pandemic which scarred the industry dramatically.

Though it is almost impossible to predict future, herein is an attempt for the period between 2023 and 2033.

Abundance of information 

Data is now easy to find so the internet makes every student, professor, parent and employer equal as for as the basics of hospitality are concerned. One doesn’t really need to go to a hotel school to learn about stocks, soups and recipes or the difference between a club and grilled cheese sandwich. In this paradigm of abundant information, what good education will do is help the student analyse and conclude what is actionable knowledge and discard the rest as raw data. So, the skill of the future is epistemology – what constitutes knowledge.

Blended learning

Education of the future is no longer limited to classrooms and full-time contact in a campus. Courses will be delivered part-contact, part-digital, some simultaneously and some as self-paced learning. In general, physical and virtual learning worlds will become seamless to the advantage of the learner. 

Achievement levels – not degrees

The present time ladder of education is: 

• 12 or 13 years of schooling
• + 4 years to a bachelor’s degree
• + 2 years to achieve a masters
• + 3 years to a PhD

This time-scale past high school will be fragmented into multiple smaller achievements and academic recognitions and inspired by gamification tiers and status levels. Over the next decade or two, we forecast that the students will move between study and work seamlessly multiple times throughout their lives – going to study whenever they need new ‘toolkits’ for business success.

Soft skills

Hospitality programmes of the future will have predominant focus on acquiring soft skills – critical thinking, public speaking, problem-solving, leadership, ethics etc. All these are areas which will enhance the emotional quotient of the graduate. Soft skills form the core of customer satisfaction, the main target for any hospitality employee. 

Student ages will vary greatly

With the advent of lifelong learning, capacity refreshment and shorter programmes, we will also have diverse age members of cohorts. The future teams will comprise all age brackets and professors will have to creatively ensure respect and knowledge exchange within first career, second career and third career classmates. Thus, schools of the future will be a diplomatic balancing act. The best advantage of older cohort members will be that they transfer life experiences to the younger members – if all parties can respect one another.

Micro enterprises – web 3.0, 4.0…

The future of hospitality is aggregated ecosystems of microenterprises. The movement has already started with online booking companies, food delivery agents, flexible part-time employees and guests who seek multiple levels of service delivery etc. This change will sweep through education as well. Since good education prepares graduates for industry, institutions will also be forced to practise what they preach; curriculums will have greater content on diversity, entrepreneurship, financial agility etc. Likewise, the faculty will be a grouping of senior professors who run their own enterprises. This will be fantastic for all concerned and each course will become a live example of the new world of microenterprise and self-responsibility. 

Finally, I forecast that having lived the past and present of talent ‘scarcity’, we are at the leap-off point to abundance of talent and an exciting future for individuals and organisations who do the right things for themselves and humanity.

This article was published in BW hotelier issue dated '' with cover story titled 'BW HOTELIER - THE TALENT POOL SPECIAL'