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Up to 25 percent of the world’s construction cranes are in Dubai, and they are mostly busy constructing new hotels and resorts. For young professionals in the Middle East, now is a great time to be involved in the hospitality industry.
As those in the field look to advance their career, many consider whether to invest in a Master’s degree. Professionals often choose between a traditional business MBA or a Master’s in Hospitality.
While the business MBA is a fine degree, it is generalized. The education it offers speaks to the world of business and finance, and not to the unique demands of the hospitality field.
Hospitality requires a mix of hard and soft skills, demands adaptability in the face of constant change, and rewards those who can retain and use high-level knowledge of client experience.
Compared with most business school graduates, professionals with a Hospitality Master’s degree have specialised knowledge and experience in keeping the customer in the forefront of their minds in all decisions.
HR managers find that sometimes traditional MBA graduates keep a narrow focus on just using the business management skills and financial tools that they learned in school. While this is fine for a business, it can harm the hospitality model, as hospitality is a people-centered business and hospitality students must make the practical connection between changes to the business model and keeping the highest customer satisfaction.
That means Hospitality Master’s students are better equipped to develop products and services that are in line with the business brand as well as geared toward customer satisfaction.
Master’s level hospitality classes give students a thorough grounding in the history of hospitality, immerse them in a service orientation, and offer an invaluable glimpse into the ways that operational decision-making can impact both customer satisfaction and the bottom line.
Since hospitality is at heart a hands-on industry, this insight can be critical in helping management to make the best decisions for the business.
In the hospitality industry, customer service is not a department, nor a number to ring – all members of the company are involved in customer services.
Hospitality professionals must develop an understanding of the implication of decisions across all areas of the service delivery and customer experience. Only a curriculum reflecting the hospitality model and provided by professors whose core expertise is hospitality can provide this valuable skill.
As growth continues at a record pace, the entire service industry is looking for additional talent across the Middle East.
Increasingly, businesses outside of the industry — including private banks and consulting companies – look to top hospitality schools to recruit their graduates, a sign of the growing value of an education in hospitality.
Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) is the world’s number one hospitality management school and delivers exceptional Masters programmes in hospitality, providing targeted expertise in advanced loyalty marketing, client-centric decision-making, specialized understanding of local markets, and more.
You can find out more about EHL here.
