The Future of Hospitality Education

TLDR

The expanding services economy has prompted business schools to address service operations, yet many hotel‑school programs are shifting toward general business, causing hospitality graduates to compete with general‑business graduates for service‑sector managerial roles. The study argues that hospitality‑education programs must refocus curricula on industry needs to avoid being subsumed by general business programs. The authors propose that four‑year programs recruit industry‑specialized faculty and collaborate closely with the hospitality sector to develop specialized training for managers.

Abstract

Because of the expanding role of services in the world economy, schools of business have begun to address the needs of service operations. At the same time, many hotel-school programs are drifting away from a hospitality-management orientation toward general business-management courses. If hospitality-education programs are to serve adequately their students and the industry, they must refocus their curricula on the needs of the hospitality industry; the alternative is to be absorbed into general business programs. Already, hospitality-program graduates and general-business graduates are competing for the same managerial jobs in the service sector. Four-year programs must find or develop faculty whose specializations are in the hospitality industry, and, in close cooperation with the industry, specialized programs must be developed for managers-in-training.