The growth of hospitality – opportunities for international students

Annabel Beard, of the Swiss Education Group, reports on a thriving industry for students to discover...

Philoxenia: an act of hospitableness and welcome, the ancient tradition of hospitality

While the art of hospitality has been around since ancient Greece, its reputation varies considerably according to culture. In some countries, the art of service is a highly respected craft, based on the gold standard of the Ritz-Carlton, “we are ladies and gentlemen serving ladies and gentlemen”. Regarded as a respected profession, it opens doors toa satisfying, often glamorous lifestyle in worlds that may be otherwise unattainable.

Sadly, in other cultures service is viewed as an in-between job, often providing wages to jobbing students looking to pay their way through university before taking an office job. The concept of service is incorrectly looked down upon, despite the skill and training required to perform a seamless role. Those in the industry will be familiar with the ethos, “The customer is never wrong”, the founding principle of the famous hotelier César Ritz. Often misquoted as “the customer is always right”, it has become a mantra to those working in the hospitality industry. However, outside of restaurants, bars and hotels, it is rarely applied to other areas of business, until now.

With the advent of a booming e-commerce industry, the customer has learnt that the pen, or in this case the keyboard, really is mightier than the sword. The majority of international companies have expanded their customer service departments to include experts fielding customer complaints and queries via Twitter and Facebook. The days of phoning customer enquiries while listening to a 9-minute rendition of “Greensleeves” are finally in the rear-view mirror of the customer relationship journey.

Additionally, feedback is now often embedded directly into the business model. Companies like TripAdvisor and Uber have merged this key hospitality trait into the core of their business. If the customer is never wrong, and the power of the internet is to be believed, then a customer with a viral post has become an instant incentive to learn how to keep customers happy.

To meet this new need, Hospitality Management schools, traditionally based in Switzerland, have been growing in popularity. Once often reserved for those wishing to be a first-class hotelier in a leading hotel, it now offers a variety of career options and an ideal talent pool. More and more companies look to hospitality graduates to meet these needs. From luxury brands, such as Louis Vuitton, to banks like Credit Suisse, anyone striving to reach a Branson-esque level of customer care understands that it involves going above and beyond traditional requests.

Studying hospitality enables the concept of service to act as a red thread (or perhaps in this context, a gold one) that runs throughout all stages of students’ lives, and a hospitality management education prepares them not only for their first job but also for a long-lasting, successful career. Learning to live and study in international, multicultural environments exposes even the most sheltered to a more open-minded way of functioning, encouraging both tolerance and diversity in all situations.

An ideal example of this environment is Swiss Education Group. With 5 schools spread across 7 campuses in both French and German speaking Switzerland, each campus varies in size, venue and specialisation. From a modern, city campus to a luxurious palace, all benefit from an international, close-knit environment. Each school offers top-class hospitality training as well as specialisations in a variety of sectors. While hospitality students are traditionally trained in good communication skills, teamwork and customer care, they now also have the possibility to learn about luxury business, finance, event management, human resources, marketing and design, amongst many others. This dual degree option of business and hospitality means that students are prepared for a world both inside and outside of the industry.

A silver lining to studying hospitality management is the internship opportunities. It is of no surprise that the current job market has been particularly hard in recent times, with both graduates and employers looking for alternative solutions. With the market saturated by the latest batch of university graduates, companies are favouring experienced workers looking for new opportunities. Millennials still need to learn the soft skills of life, but the previous generations have already cut their teeth on company politics, complicated team dynamics and tricky work environments. The university experiencetraditionally focuses on the academic aspect and few students have the possibility to learn real life job skills from inside the classroom.

The possibility to study and work at the same time is therefore an appealing one, and gives a boost to both CVs and their employability. Undertaking two internships as part of their curriculum allows Swiss Education Group students to gain real-world experience and develop their soft skills. With exclusive access to the bi-annual International Recruitment Forum held each year in Montreux, Switzerland, students have the chance to meet with over 70 recruiters at each event. Not only does this grant them unprecedented networking opportunities, it also serves as an ideal educational platform in its own right. With roundtables, guest speakers and plenty of interview preparation, the hands on experience serves as the ideal compliment to time spent in a classroom.

With UBS as their most recent addition to the recruiters attending the International Recruitment Forum, this trend towards going above and beyond for the customer can only benefit both client and company. Choosing to study hospitality management has finally crossed over into the business world and with a hospitality education broadening graduates career horizons, it truly is a win-win situation for everyone. 

For more information about the Swiss Education Group, click here.