What is hospitality management ?
Hospitality management is a career path that typically falls under the hotels, resorts, and lodging industry. Professionals in this field create and run many aspects of the guest experience. They also often manage teams that include front desk staff, housekeeping, and sales. Great hospitality managers care about how much their customers enjoy their experience and are looking for new ways to improve every aspect of a visit whenever possible.
The main types of properties in which hospitality managers often work include hotels, motels, resorts, and condos. But you’ll also find hospitality managers working in casinos, private transportation, retail, food and beverage, and more.
So, as you can see, each business type has its own unique needs and customer archetypes. Of course, it’s good to have an idea of which one you’d like to specialize in before you start applying for hospitality manager jobs.
Hospitality management is a broad field that involves overseeing the day-to-day administrative, operational and commercial activities of businesses in the hospitality industry. Some general day-to-day activities include communicating across departments, keeping track of budgets and expenses, and hiring new staff. But these, and any additional responsibilities, vary. For example, hospitality managers at large or chain hotels may develop career programs to help other employees get to where they are.
As opposed to the more narrowly focused “hotel management”, hospitality management is an umbrella term that covers various industries such as food and beverage, travel and accommodation and event management. The departments under a hospitality manager’s stewardship may range from maintenance and housekeeping to spa services, concierge, reception and many more. The responsibilities that fall under hospitality management, differ according to the setting in which they are categorized. Chiefly, these can include the following:
Two main goals of hospitality management professionals are to make customers happy and stay within a given budget. These goals often conflict, such as when a guest would like a full refund for their multi-night stay. It’s up to the hospitality manager to figure out what the property can afford, how they can make it up to the customer, and how the people who directly field these complaints should go about resolving them.