Do you aspire to be a leader, one who leads people and businesses while fulfilling your potential, and creating something people love? If so, you should study Hospitality. Specialised Hospitality education offers one of the most comprehensive leadership training programmes available anywhere in the world. Here are eight reasons to pursue Hospitality:
Experiential learning: The greatest leaders don’t spend their days behind a door; they are active, involved, and working hands-on to guide others, share their skills, and inspire success. In-classroom studies still take place, but practical work and a learn-by-doing approach treats students as professionals and expects them to behave as such. This helps build resilience, preparedness, and discipline; the foundation of any successful leader.
Real-world exposure: Educational settings and professional work experience should not be mutually exclusive. The best programmes blend classroom studies with exposure to live, working environments. This ensures that graduates can bring value to their employers or entrepreneurial ventures immediately. Allowing students to embark on behind-the-scenes trips at restaurants, hotels, and leading brands builds their confidence in high-pressure environments while simultaneously encouraging them to understand their chosen path. Internships built into the learning journey enable them to put into practice their knowledge, build their CV, and return to campus transformed into a professional on the path to leadership.
Multicultural environment: In hospitality, and increasingly across all sectors, businesses and teams are international, multicultural, and diverse. As a leader, one must have cultural fluency, understanding, and emotional intelligence to bring the team together into one harmonious unit. It is a leader’s responsibility to lead an environment that promotes fair treatment and participation of everyone, where Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) influence decision-making and day-to-day activities.
Entrepreneurial atmosphere: Whether the goal is to lead a team, a business, or launch a startup, an entrepreneurial mindset and skills are highly desirable. Within the campus of leading hospitality schools are ambitious individuals set on changing the world working alongside faculty who are successful academic and industry professionals. The result of this is an environment that redefines education as a hub of innovation, ideation, and creativity where individuals share skills, motivation and experience.
Global network: Acquiring a Hospitality B-school education is an opportunity to unravel hard and soft skills, while also building a global network of influential contacts. From fellow students and faculty to illustrious guest speakers and leaders, a top hospitality programme will offer an opportunity to build relationships that can launch one’s career before graduation and rapidly advance leadership ambitions and goals.
Professional character: While game-changing individuals and leaders around the world can be found dressed in everything from business attire to casual apparel, there is something to be said for the attitude, rigor, and professionalism that a dress code instills in a young student. At renowned hospitality educational institutions, students are expected to maintain and display a high standard of personal appearance on campus, attempting to help them to focus on their studies, feel confident, acquire structure, and set new elevated standards for themselves.
Lifelong learning: Hospitality is possibly one of the world’s fastest-moving industries, with constant evolution driven by changing consumer needs and expectations. Technology, digital transformation, shifting trends, and constant innovation instill a need for constant learning in students to remain relevant and bring maximum value. This leads to a commitment to lifelong learning to keep themselves at the forefront of their industry, leading the way and guiding those around them.
The writer is CEO, Les Roches Global Hospitality Education.
