Hospitality prospects and Jobs in Hospitality

Some of the main issues facing the industry for thefuture are the same as those it faced in the past –investment, attraction and retention of staff andskills shortages.ECONOMIC IMPACTOver the last ten years, over £20 billion has beeninvested but more needs to be done if the industryis to compete successfully in the global market ofthe future. Government support of the VisitBritainmarketing strategy generates around £13 billion inrevenue each year. Further investment here wouldproduce significantly greater returns to both theindustry and the UK economy generally. The recentenlargement of the European Union (EU) and Chinaprovides potential new areas for investment.DEMOGRAPHIC CHANGESPopulation growth and migration around the worldis one of the key issues for the industry in thefuture. The world’s population is projected to growfrom 6.2 billion today to 8.9 billion by 2050 butless than 6% of that growth will be in developedcountries. The number of elderly will increasesignificantly so as to shift the ratio of workingpeople to retirees in favour of the latter. In short, inmany parts of the world, more people will be over60 and living longer, healthier lives. Many of themwill want to travel. With fewer young people cominginto the workforce in developed countries, theindustry will have to look increasingly to migrants tomeet their customers’ needs and expectations inthe future (For full article, see Hotels magazine,March 2004).TRENDSEmployer branding is becoming increasinglyimportant when it comes to recruitment. Manycatering companies believe that building asuccessful employer brand makes it much easier toattract people who fit the culture of a company. Acompany’s organisational structure and its workingenvironment are becoming more important toprospective employees than the financial packetand benefits.Nutritional Standards for schools and hospitals willcontinue to be on the agenda. Various governmentinitiatives already underway are set to move on tothe next phase. The ‘better hospital food’ initiative,which has focused on better food for patients, willmove on to address environmental issues. One ofthe requirements of hospital caterers and othergovernment contracts will be the use of locallyproduced and fair trade food products. Tough newstandards for school meals will be introduced in2006 and caterers will be required to providenutritious meals. From September 2006, howhealthy a school’s menu is, will become part of theOfsted inspection process.GOVERNMENT LEGISLATIONA ban on smoking in cafés, restaurants and pubsthat serve food heads the list of policy initiatives inthe Government’s White Paper on Public Health.The British Beer and Pub Association (BBPA) saidthat around 22,000 bars and pubs would enforcethe ban before the end of 2005. Wetherspoons hashad smoke-free areas in its pubs for over ten yearsand plans to ban smoking completely by May2006. However, other big players are morecautious and have agreed that they will graduallywork towards the notion of a complete ban. At themoment, it is unclear how the law will beimplemented and what the economic impact willbe. There are fears that some pub operators mayhave to get rid of food sales and become drinksonlybars.In October 2005, the national minimum wage isdue to rise to over £5 per hour for those who are21 and over, with a further increase of 6% inOctober 2006. A spokesman for the BritishHospitality Association (BHA) said that this was inline with what the industry expected (seeCatererSearch for details).6As it will be7Hotels - there are a number of large recruiters inthe luxury, mid-range and budget hotel markets.Examples include: Accor, which operates in over 90countries and has amongst its brands, Novotel, Ibisand Sofitel - it focuses on training and developmentof its staff, offering graduate programmes, modernapprenticeships and management developmentprogrammes; Jurys Doyle, which offers careeropportunities in various specialist roles andmanagement positions and provides a range oftraining opportunities for those keen to get on;Hilton, which has over 500 hotels worldwide; andWhitbread, which is the UK’s largest hotelier - it hasrecently acquired Premier Lodge Hotels andconverted them to Premier Travel Inns and isplanning to rebrand all of its 457 hotels to PremierTravel Inns within the next six months.Restaurants - this is quite a diverse sector withmany small, independent businesses alongside theburgeoning branded sector. It is an area where selfemploymentis a possibility, especially if you haveflair and initiative. A few big players dominate thehigh street chains, especially:• Whitbread, whose brands include Beefeater,Costa, TGI Fridays, Brewers Fayre and more(Whitbread also has investment in Pizza Hut -UK);• The Restaurant Group, with ConcessionConnection, Caffé Uno, Chiquito, Frankie &Benny’s and Garfunkels amongst their brands.Pubs, clubs and bars - the distinction betweenthis subsector and restaurants is blurring with manyof these establishments now offering food. Again,there’s a mixture between small, independentbusinesses, tenanted or freehold businesses andlarge groups who own particular brands. Examplesof these are: Scottish and Newcastle PubEnterprises, who own numerous brands, including T& J Bernard, Thistle Inns and others; Mitchells andButlers whose brands include O’Neills, All Bar One,Vintage Inns and Toby Carvery; The Spirit Group, amanaged pub company with over 2,000 pubs, barsand restaurants in the UK; Punch Taverns, a leasedand tenanted pub company with around 7,800pubs across the UK; and Enterprise Inns, anotherleased and tenanted pub company with 9,000pubs spread throughout the UK.Contract catering - this subsector is much moreconcentrated. The largest players are the CompassGroup, whose operations span the hospitality sectorwith over 9,000 businesses in the UK; Sodexhowhose clients range from schools and hospitals tothe armed forces to blue-chip commercialcompanies; and Aramark, which also has a broadspectrum of clients.Hospitality services - generally speaking, the bigplayers in this sector are public sector institutions,eg schools, hospitals, universities and civil servicedepartments. Within this, though, contracting outmeans that contract caterers are also heavilyinvolved in this area.In general, these big players offer excellentmanagement prospects and a range of training anddevelopment opportunities, from modernapprenticeships to graduate training programmes.OTHER AREAS WITHIN HOSPITALITYA popular career area for graduates is conferenceand exhibition management. Opportunities existwithin large hotel groups, specific conferencevenues (eg universities, sporting venues andexhibition centres) and smaller events managementcompanies. Hospitality-related careers are alsoavailable working on cruise ships.There are officer-level positions in the armed forces(Army, Royal Air Force and Royal Navy) forgraduates looking for careers in cateringmanagement in these environments.SALARIES ON OFFERA number of factors will determine salary and it willvary across the subsectors of the industry. It willalso depend on the size of the employer. Here aresome examples that demonstrate the wide range ofsalaries available. For example, a general managerof a budget hotel in the provinces may earnbetween £25,000 and £75,000 and a receptionmanager between £12,000 and £16,000. Thegeneral manager of a five-star hotel in London,however, could earn between £35,000 and£185,000. A pub manager of a small outlet mightearn between £23,000 and £26,000, whereas anarea manager might earn between £34,000 and£40,000 (source: The Caterer Group Careers Guide2005).Big players8The hospitality industry is a major player within theglobal economy. The World Travel and TourismCouncil (WTTC) estimates that, in 2004, the traveland tourism economy represented 10.4% of theglobal economy (this includes suppliers). The WTTCalso estimates that the global travel and tourismeconomy created almost ten million new jobs in2004 (Hospitality Journal Dec/Jan 2004/05). Thehospitality sector is vulnerable to national andglobal events and can be seriously affected bythem. For example, Foot and Mouth disease in theUK and the aftermath of 9/11 in 2001, the war inIraq and SARS in 2003 and, more recently, thetsunami disaster. It is too soon to say how theindustry will be affected by this latest catastrophebut small businesses will undoubtedly be thehardest hit.However, the World Bank forecast a return to realGDP (gross domestic product) growth of 4.0% for2004 and continued growth, albeit at a slower rate,for 2005 (source: World Bank Global Outlook).OPPORTUNITIES OVERSEAS FOR UKGRADUATESThe hospitality sector is a worldwide industry andthere are lots of opportunities for graduates,particularly temporary and seasonal work. There arealso opportunities for more career-focused jobs butit may be difficult to get a graduate positionimmediately after graduating, as most hotel groupsexpect their graduates to undergo their own broadbasedtraining schemes, thus giving them a fullunderstanding of the company and its culture.However, with experience, it may be possible totake secondments abroad and possibly even moveabroad within one of the global groups. Inevitably,language skills are important for many of theseopportunities.A new career portal was launched in 2004. It cameinto being largely due to a strategic alliancebetween the International Hotel & RestaurantAssociation (IH&RA) and HCareers. It can beaccessed through the IH&RA website and itprovides job seekers with easy access to thousandsof hospitality job openings internationally. IH&RAhave also recently formed a partnership withhotelschools.com and hospitalitynet.com so as tofurther promote education and career developmentwithin the global hospitality and tourism industry(IH&RA Report, Hotels, November 2004).OPPORTUNITIES IN THE UK FOR EU ANDOVERSEAS STUDENTSEU students are in a good position when seekingemployment, particularly if they have stronglanguage skills. The hospitality sector in general ismultinational but, just like any other industry, workpermits would be required to gain employment.Policies will vary and of course it will depend uponwhat specific skills and experiences you have tooffer. Contact individual employers for more details.For further information, see the AGCAS SpecialInterest booklets Working Abroad and UsingLanguages. Consult Prospects Directory for detailsof graduate recruiters.A world view9Getting in and getting onGraduate training schemes are very common in thehospitality sector, particularly where largecompanies are prominent. Inevitably, each will havetheir own features but some general points are asfollows (see also ‘As it is’).Most hotel programmes are designed to developoperations managers of the future. To achieve this,graduate trainees spend their training periodmoving around various departments and hotelswithin the group. Such departments could include:front of house; restaurant; housekeeping; accounts;conference and events; sales and marketing; andhuman resources. Hotels argue that this broadtraining before specialisation gives a greaterunderstanding of the business and this is importantin a competitive market where brand identity,company ethos and uniformity of service areparamount.However, not all graduate trainees becomeoperations managers. Many specialise in an area oftheir training, either within a hotel or develop in ahead office function, such as accounting andfinance, information technology, human resources,sales and marketing, etc.In the restaurant subsector, again the larger playershave graduate schemes and many features ofthese will be similar in the pubs, clubs and bars.With many programmes you would join as anassistant manager and undertake structuredtraining, particularly in the areas of leadership,finance, health and safety and customer service.You would also need to become familiar with allaspects of licensing legislation and some employersmay put you through the qualifications ofprofessional bodies, eg British Institute ofInnkeepers (BII).The hospitality services subsector is unlikely to havegraduate schemes, although interested graduatesshould apply to specific vacancies they areinterested in. The contract catering subsector isfairly concentrated and most of the big players havetheir own graduate training schemes.For those interested in conference and exhibitionmanagement, there are the general programmesrun by large hotels, which can lead to specialisationin this area. For employment at exhibition venues orwithin events management companies, theseopportunities are likely to be advertised eitherlocally, through specialist hospitality publications orvia hospitality recruitment consultants. Many enterthese organisations via speculative approaches (see‘Good reads’ and ‘Hot links’ for further details).Exhibition venues and events managementcompanies tend to be small teams, therefore, thenumber of openings are unlikely to be numerous.The ‘hotel’ section of a cruise ship is the largestand, therefore, has the most opportunities.Management positions tend to be filled internally sogetting a foot in the door would be the first step. Inmost cases, you would apply directly to the cruiseline. See ‘Good reads’ and ‘Hot links’ to identifycontacts.If you are interested in the armed forces, your firststep is to arrange an informal discussion with therelevant university liaison officer for the branch ofservice you are interested in. This can usually bedone through your university careers service.