The hospitality and tourism industry is a lucrative career path that will build your creativity and sharpen your emotional intelligence. Depending on your career, you may work with people of different cultures & countries on a day-to-day basis.

Tourism & hospitality are also some of the fastest-growing industries today. Check out 5 reasons why you should start a career in hospitality and tourism to learn more. [link to 5 reasons you should start a career in h&t blog]

Explore this guide to learn what a career in hospitality and tourism looks like.

What Is the Hospitality and Tourism Industry?

The hospitality industry is incredibly service-oriented and customer-facing, especially compared to most other fields. Services it consists of mainly provide customers luxury, entertainment, and pleasure. In fact, the meaning of hospitality is to welcome guests and tend to their needs. For example, hospitality & tourism includes ensuring that guests enjoy their vacations, or that a business event runs smoothly& is well-organized.

Primarily, there are three sectors of hospitality: accommodation, food & beverage, and tourism.

The accommodation sector is all about providing guests with temporary places to stay. This includes managing lodgings, hotels, campsites, motels, resorts, and the like. Establishments vary by the unique cultures & norms of each location.

The food and beverage sector includes a range of establishments that provide food. These establishments can range from local family-owned cafés to large restaurant chains. The goal of this sector is to provide quality time for customers to relax, socialize, and enjoy their meals.

The tourism sector (or travel sector) attracts, entertains, and accommodates customers when they are traveling. 

It includes everything from modes of traveling like tour buses, cruises, and airlines to physical places like theme parks, hotels, and casinos.

As you can tell, there is significant overlap between these three sectors, and they require similar skills as well. We have outlined 5 jobs with positive outlooks in the future below.

The Top 5 Jobs in Hospitality and Tourism

1. Event Manager

If your family and friends depend on you to make their parties special, then event management may be your dream career.

Event managers plan, organize and manage corporate, family, and entertainment events It'ssimultaneously a well-paying and demanding job that requires balancing different responsibilities.

Some of the tasks and skills of an event manager include”

1. Project management
2. Meticulous attention to detail
3. Understanding the event needs
4. Preparing for mishaps beforehand
5. making financial reports for the event
6. Hotel general manager

A hotel general manager oversees the complete day-to-day business processes of a hotel. As such, they manage all the staff at the hotel, including accountants, chefs, housekeeping, porters, and concierges. They also interact with customers to ensure their needs have been met. For example, the general manager may have to handle customer complaints and take responsibility if something goes wrong.

Some of the job responsibilities of a general manager include:

1. Meetings with staff department heads
2. Setting an example for hotel conduct and ambiance
3. Creating long and short-term strategies to meet demand & goals
4. Executive chef and sous chef

Most restaurants have an executive chef to oversee all kitchen operations. 

Roles & responsibilities of an executive chef include:

1. Managing the kitchen
2. Updating menus according to customer preferences
3. Ensuring food safety & health standards are met
4. Streamlining processes

After the executive chef comes to the sous chef, who is more involved in the kitchen and oversees the staff. The second chef also takes the role of executive chef in their absence.

4. Sommelier

The sommelier (which means “wine waiter”) typically works in a restaurant or hotel and manages wine offerings to the customers.

The roles and responsibilities of a sommelier include:

1. Maintaining the wine stock
2. Creating wine menus based on the occasions
3. Suggesting different wines based on guests’ tastes

It's a popular job that requires a strong knowledge of wines and excellent communication skills with customers.

5. Casino general manager

As the title suggests, the overall operation of a casino is overseen by the casino’s general manager.

They:-

1. Administer the general policies of the casino
2. Supervise the staff
3. Handle customer complaints

Conclusion

A career in hospitality and tourism is fulfilling and unique, as you meet new people and work on interesting customer-facing projects. Read about how you can start a successful career in hospitality and tourism. 

Along with an understanding of how businesses work, communication skills, presentation skills, marketing skills, and negotiation are a few recommended skills prospective workers in this field should think about. For more, check out our post on Hospitality and Tourism skills!