If you possess an international hospitality accreditation, the world is truly your oyster. Additionally, graduates can change careers and take on new opportunities as their lives progress because many hospitality management skills can be transferred.
Senior lecturer at The IIE School of Hospitality &, Service Management ( IIE HSM) in Rosebank, Johannesburg, Etresia Booysen says:” I always tell my students that the hospitality industry is so broad that they need to place themselves within it, and what you start out doing is not necessarily what’s going to do for the rest of your life.” People who have a hospitality degree are equipped with the foundational skills necessary for many different job opportunities and careers.
Establishments like hotels, resorts, and restaurants come to mind when you hear the word “hospitality,” but even though these companies are in the hospitality sector, the sector as a whole is vast, with countless careers spread across numerous businesses.
A strong hospitality education not only prepares students for the hospitality industry but also gives them a variety of service-oriented skills and teaches them to consider, plan, and carry out the needs of both the guest and the consumer.
Graduates with hospitality management degrees are equipped with a wide range of transferable skills, including those that are highly sought-after outside of traditional hospitality roles, such as management consulting, sports management, the financial industry, and eCommerce. In fact, anywhere where good people and service are needed.
The three-year Bachelor of Hotel Management ( BOHM) candidate from Melrose North, Luca Clark ( 22 ) does n’t always envision himself holding a traditional hospitality position in an inn or restaurant. He will graduate from IIE HSM this year.
” I intend to start a sabbatical year after graduation that is devoted to experiential learning and travel.” Finding employment on cruise ships is my main plan for achieving this objective. My professional aspirations are based on my active involvement in the events industry, and I have long-term plans to start a well-known events company that will organize significant music festivals, according to Clark.
According to Booysen, formal and recognized hospitality credentials are now crucial, especially in light of rising market demand and the world’s ongoing transition to a service-focused, experience-based economy.
” At IIE HSM, we specifically seek to address the rapidly growing demand for service, hospitality, and customer-centric education, spanning entry-level through management level qualifications, including certificate, diploma courses and the BOHM, which is essentially a business degree based on hospitality.”
Zanelda Kok, a 21-year-old Germiston resident who intends to work internationally and dreams of owning her own hotel or small business, is another soon-to-be IIE HSM graduate.
She worked in a hotel management position during the Work Integrated Learning ( WIL ) experience, which was crucial to the development of her skillset.
She says,” The industry is constantly expanding, and I think my future is bright with hard work.”
In actuality, two of the world’s fastest-growing industries right now are travel and tourism. According to the State of Hospitality 2022, pre-COVID levels for hospitality operations will soon reach US$ 502.7 billion. The total spending of the travel and tourism sector is expected to reach US$ 846 billion by 2025. 4.7 % of the annual growth in the global GDP, or the same as the construction sector, is attributed to tourism and hospitality. Travelers had access to 17.4 million hotel rooms worldwide in 2021, and by the end of 2024, that number is expected to increase to 18.6 million.
For upcoming hospitality graduates, the largest proportional increase will be in upscale luxury hotels, which will reach 4.7 million by 2024 from 4.1 million in 2021.
The enormous talent gap in the hospitality and travel sectors is perhaps the most striking. By 2025, this skill gap will need to be filled by up to 14 million new graduates in the hospitality industry.
According to IIE HSM’s MD Renee Hill, students who study hospitality management gain real, in-demand skills that employers seek in applicants. This holds true for marketable abilities like teamwork, leadership, design thinking, finance and budgeting, and marketing in addition to upper-level management skills and operational procedures.
The following credentials are offered by IIE HSM: an advanced diploma in hospitality leadership ( NQF7 ), a higher certificate in hospitality management ( IQF5 ), and an IE Bachelor of Hospitality Management ( NIFE 7 ).