Hospitality and Tourism
The hospitality and tourism industry has changed more
than a little since the first motel, in San Luis Obispo, California, was
opened in 1925. (Its rooms went for $2.50 a night.) Today, there are more
than four million guest rooms in the country, and tourists and businesspeople
spend about $550 billion each year on travel in the United States. The
industry includes behemoths like Marriott, Hilton, Six Flags, and Disneyland
and Walt Disney World, on down to out-of-the-way bed-and-breakfasts and
roadside attractions like the Liberace Museum (in Las Vegas), the Cadillac
Ranch (Amarillo, Texas), and the Dan Quayle Center and Museum (Huntington,
Indiana).
Which means that the Gideons, who placed their first Bible in a hotel room
in 1908, have a lot more work to do than they used to. But they’re not the
only ones. Today, the industry employs more than seven million people
directly and even more than that indirectly. (For example, consider a waiter
in a restaurant in Palm Springs, California, which is in the middle of the
desert: His job wouldn’t exist if it weren’t for the fact that Palm Springs
is a tourist destination.) Accountants, nurses, salespeople, lifeguards, park
rangers, street cleaners, car rental agents, blackjack dealers, caterers,
cruise directors, the actress in the Snow White costume, the clerk in the
t-shirt shack, the tennis pro, the golf course groundskeeper—the industry
employs these folks and many, many more.
Despite the size and complexity of the industry, today many of its arms are
interconnected by technology. Computer systems now allow people to reserve
airline tickets, rental cars, hotel rooms, and tours—all at the same time.
These computer systems are called computer reservation systems (CRSs) or
global distribution systems (GDSs).
Although many in the industry work in behind-the-scenes positions, those on
the front lines—travel agents, front desk clerks, tour guides, and so on—must
be enthusiastic and articulate. And in most any position, you’ll need to have
a love of service and a strong attention to detail. In the end, your job is
about how satisfied you’ve made the customer.
Recovery?
It’s been a very difficult few years for the hospitality and tourism
industry. The economic recession has caused businesses, individuals, and
families to cut back on their spending on travel, and fears of terrorism have
made many folks even less inclined to travel. The results have included lower
industry revenues, layoffs, and a tighter job market. Today, though, there
are signs that people are starting to travel more and that the industry may
be recovering. Industry analysts are expecting increasing demand for hotel
rooms and seats on airline flights in 2004, with an increase in job
opportunities in many sectors of the industry.
The Internet
The biggest change in the travel industry in recent years has been the rise
of the Internet. It used to be that you had to speak with your travel agent,
or call hotels and airlines directly, to make your travel plans. But as
Internet usage spread, it became possible to use the new technology to
research destinations and compare prices yourself, or visit websites that
provide all that information in one place. Indeed, companies such as Expedia
and Travelocity have become quite profitable doing just that. In 2003, 12
percent of lodging reservations were made online, and that number is sure to
grow in coming years.
One of the changes wrought by the Internet has been to make the travel agent
and reservations clerk less necessary to making travel plans. According to
industry experts, the Internet has also raised the number of rooms occupied
per night—but it’s also caused lower revenue per room, as the ease of
Internet comparison shopping and Internet-only promos have increased
competition among hospitality providers.
Niche Markets
As in many other industries, the big players in the hospitality and tourism
industry have become vastly more efficient due to technology and management
advances in recent years. These days, smaller players just can’t compete on
price. So how can smaller hotels, motels, and tour operators compete with
bigger players who pay half what they do for supplies? For many smaller
players, the answer is finding a market niche that is not adequately served
by the big players and becoming a specialist in providing services for that
niche.
Although some market niches are already served by big industry players
(think: golf resorts, or tour operators who put together trips to New York
City to see Broadway plays), there are plenty of niches that smaller players
focus on. For example, there are tour operators that focus on the gay male
market, Christian- or Jewish-focused Jerusalem-tour packagers, back
country-skiing tour guides, ecotourism resorts, and so on. If you love travel
and have a passion for a certain place or activity, it’s likely you’ll be
able to find a company that operates in that niche. The only problem is that
many of these companies will be so small that they’ll rarely have an open
position for you to fill.
Hospitality and tourism is a big, hard-to-pin-down
industry that actually consists of 15 or more specific sectors, including car
rentals, restaurants, convention and meeting planning, airlines, State and
National Parks, convention and visitor bureaus, and tour operators. That’s
way too much for us to look at here, though, so we’ll stick to the following
core sectors of the industry:
Lodging
The lodging sector, which serves both vacationers and business travelers and
which made $103 billion in revenue in 2002, consists of hotels, motels,
bed-and-breakfast providers, hostels, and the like: places where you can stay
the night. Lodging types include budget accommodations (e.g., EconoLodge,
Super 8, and Motel 6), midpriced lodgings (e.g., Sheraton, Marriott), and
high-end luxury hotels (e.g., W Hotels, Ritz-Carlton), as well as hostels,
campgrounds, and bed-and-breakfasts. Major players in this sector include
Carlson Companies, Cendant, Hilton, Marriott, Starwood Hotels & Resorts,
Accor, and Choice Hotels.
Resorts
These are destinations built around a specific activity (e.g., golf or
skiing), attraction (e.g., Walt Disney World), or target demographic (e.g.,
Club Med destinations for singles and families, respectively). Unlike the
lodgings sector, this sector is focused squarely on the vacation market and
includes timeshare accommodations. Big players here include Walt Disney Parks
& Resorts, Club Med, Sandals, Fairfield Resorts, Bluegreen Corp.,
Intrawest Corp., Vail Resorts, and American Skiing Co.
Gambling
Las Vegas, Reno, and Atlantic City used to be the only places that came to
mind when you mentioned the word “casino,” but in recent years this sector
has been growing in places from Louisiana to North Dakota and from Florida to
California. Gaming businesses include casinos, riverboat casinos, racetracks,
and racetrack casinos (or “racinos”). Casinos can be stand-alone attractions,
or can be combined with lodging facilities (and in some cases, such as
Vegas’s New York New York, nongambling attractions) to make gambling resorts.
This sector employed 351,000 people in 2002. Big players here include
Harrah’s, MGM Mirage, Caesar’s, Mandalay Resort Group, and Trump Hotels &
Casino Resorts.
Attractions
This sector comprises all the places you might visit as your primary
destination while on vacation, as well as all those places you might stop to
check out en route to your primary destination. In other words, everything
from amusement parks (for instance, Disneyland) and roadside attractions
(such as the Salem Witch Museum) to notable natural landscapes (the Grand
Canyon), famous or historical buildings (Graceland, the Alamo), and in some
cases entire towns or cities (Branson, Missouri). Big players in this sector
include the National Parks Service, Walt Disney Parks & Resorts, Busch
Entertainment Corp., Paramount Parks, Universal Parks & Entertainment,
Six Flags, Cedar Fair, and ClubCorp.
Travel Agencies and Travel Packagers
Travel agents and packagers help travelers plan their business trips and
vacations. Travel agents help business travelers and tourists plan and
purchase everything from airline tickets and car rentals to resort stays and
attraction tickets. Travel packagers put together trips for individual
tourists or groups of tourists, arranging for everything from hotel stays and
restaurant reservations to tours guides, theater reservations, and sports
lessons. Smaller travel agencies and packagers are more likely to focus on a
single market, activity, or location. For example, one travel packager might
focus on singles tours, another might offer only surf tours, and another may
concentrate on tours of Asia. Major players in this category include American
Express, Cendant, Expedia, Orbitz, Travelocity, Carlson Wagonlit Travel,
WorldTravel, Maritz Inc., and World Travel Specialists Group.
Cruise Lines
Cruise lines are included in this profile because while other modes of
transportation, like airlines, are primarily about getting passengers from
place to place, on a cruise ship the trip is the focus. Indeed, cruise ships
are essentially floating resorts, with all the activities and amenities of
resorts of every kind. Major players here include Carnival, Royal Caribbean,
Norwegian Cruise Lines, Royal Olympic, and Star Cruises.
The outlook in the hospitality and tourism industry
varies depending on the position and sector you’re interested in working
in:
-
Opportunities in hospitality,
which have been fewer than usual during the recent economic downturn, are
projected to grow at a slightly greater rate than jobs overall between
2000 and 2010.
-
For travel agents, the outlook
isn’t nearly so bright, due to the growing popularity of travel websites
for planning trips and making reservations among both individual and
corporate travelers.
Of course, the hospitality and tourism industry is especially sensitive to
the overall economy; when things are tough in the economy, businesspeople
tend to travel less, and would-be vacationers tend to scale back their travel
plans, if not cancel them altogether. Events of global significance, such as
terrorist attacks and disease epidemics, can also hurt the travel business.
Be aware that, occasionally, the industry will go into a downturn, and that
when that happens nobody’s job is completely safe.
A final note:
Adventure travel is one particularly hot spot
in the travel business these days. Competition is tough for positions in this
sector, but jobs here should continue to grow in coming years.
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Join the Industry, See the World
In an industry built around travel, it makes perfect sense: Many in hospitality and tourism get great discounts on everything from hotel and airline rates to event tickets. Imagine a trip to an exotic location every year. Imagine staying in four-star hotels. Imagine having a suntan every winter. Your friends are going to be so jealous.
Do What You Love
You want to work outdoors, way out in the desert, deep in the woods, or overlooking the ocean? There’s a place in hospitality and tourism for you. You want to surf, or mountain bike, or work to preserve the environment? There’s a place in hospitality and tourism for you. You want to sing, or dance, or act? Yep—there’s a place in hospitality and tourism for you. Park rangers, lodging managers, golf pros, action-sports tour guides, and performing artists at theme parks and resorts—they all get to do what they love. And lots of their colleagues in more-corporate fields—such as sales reps, accountants, and travel agents—get just as much of a charge out of working in hospitality and tourism—out of working in a beautiful location or helping others go on the vacation of their dreams.
The Paycheck
This is not an industry in which you’re going to get rich. Of course, if you make it to the top of a big corporation in hospitality and tourism, you’ll most likely be very comfortable. But in the years before that, while your friends who are bankers and doctors and lawyers and such are busy building their investment portfolios, you’ll still be making a relative pittance. In other words: You’re going to be so jealous of your friends.
The Stress
Customer service is the foundation of success in hospitality and tourism. And as anyone who’s ever worked in customer service can tell you, that means one thing: stress. In most jobs in this industry, you’ll almost always be facing deadlines. Say you’re a housekeeping manager. Will all the rooms vacated this morning be ready for new guests at the 3 p.m. check-in time? They’d better be. Or say you’re a travel agent. Are there any luxury-hotel rooms available this weekend? If there aren’t, you won’t be receiving any commission. Or you’re a tour guide, and one of your guests hasn’t returned from the shopping excursion yet—even though the bus is supposed to leave in 3 minutes. Taking care of travelers with varying needs and varying levels of bossiness (not to mention varying levels of intelligence) can get the goat of the best of us.
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Top 10 Hospitality & Tourism Companies, by 2003
Revenue
|
|
Rank
|
Company
|
Revenue ($M)
|
1-Year Change (%)
|
Employees
|
|
1
|
American Express
|
25,866
|
9
|
75,500
|
|
2
|
Cendant Corporation
|
18,192
|
29
|
85,000
|
|
3
|
Marriott International, Inc.
|
9,014
|
7
|
128,000
|
|
4
|
Carlson Companies, Inc.*
|
6,700
|
–2
|
180,000
|
|
5
|
Walt Disney Parks & Resorts
|
6,412
|
–1
|
n/a
|
|
6
|
Carnival Corporation
|
5,308
|
22
|
37,200
|
|
7
|
Caesars Entertainment, Inc.
|
4,455
|
–4
|
54,000
|
|
8
|
Harrah's Entertainment, Inc.
|
4,126
|
0
|
41,000
|
|
9
|
MGM Mirage
|
3,908
|
–3
|
43,000
|
|
10
|
Hilton Hotels Corporation
|
3,853
|
52
|
74,000
|
*2002 numbers.
Sources: Hoover's; WetFeet analysis.
|
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You’ll find the usual array of corporate positions
within the hospitality and tourism industry: marketing executives,
salespeople, accountants, HR specialists, and the like. But the majority of
the career opportunities in the industry are in more customer
service-oriented areas. Following are descriptions of some of those careers:
Restaurant Manager
Manages the daily operations of a restaurant. May require an associate's
degree in a related area or its equivalent and at least 4 years of experience
in the field or in a related area. Familiar with a variety of the field's
concepts, practices, and procedures. Relies on experience and judgment to
plan and accomplish goals. Performs a variety of complicated tasks. May lead
and direct the work of others. Typically reports to a senior manager. A wide
degree of creativity and latitude is expected. Salary range: $35,000 to
$60,000.
Executive Chef
An alternate title for this position might be “boss of the kitchen.” People
in this position oversee everything from purchasing to menu planning to the
details of food preparation. Before you reach this level, you’ll have to
grind through years in lower-level food-prep jobs. If you aspire to this
level, you’d be well-advised to attend a culinary institute. Salary range:
$55,000 to $100,000.
Concierge
This is the guy or gal at the hotel who focuses solely and relentlessly on
making his or her employer’s guests happy. You’ll be arranging for guests’
dry cleaning, theater ticket purchases, restaurant reservations, and more. To
do this job, you’ve got to love serving guests, be a creative problem-solver,
and know everything there is to know about your location. For example, you’ll
need to know whether and where there are Ethiopian restaurants in your
location—and, maybe, where one might find a “technically illegal” game of
poker, or how one might arrange to meet with a member of the opposite sex for
an hour or two. Typical salary: $17,000 to $30,000, but a good concierge in
an upscale hotel can earn a lot more via tips.
Lodging Manager
People in these positions manage the day-to-day operations of a hotel or
motel. This means doing everything from managing the housekeeping,
room-service, and reservations staff to managing the supply purchasing and
inventory control. In addition, the lodging manager is ultimately accountable
for anything that goes wrong at the hotel or motel, meaning that people in
this position can basically be on call 24/7 for emergencies from computer
breakdowns to on-site accidents. Salary range: $20,000 to $40,000.
Meeting/Event Planner
People in these positions plan meetings or special events (e.g., company
parties or industry conventions) for businesses and other organizations.
These folks do everything from reserving hotel space for meeting or event
participants to arranging for catering to negotiating rates and contracts
with those hotels and caterers and other vendors. Salary range: $40,000 to
$70,000.
Travel Agent
The travel agent helps customers understand their travel, lodging, and
activity options,in addition to making reservations or purchasing tickets for
everything from airline flights to car rentals. Agents have to have an
understanding of one or more of the reservations technologies used in the
industry: Sabre, Amadeus, Worldspan, or Galileo. They must also be good at
selling and customer relations. More and more agents are getting a formal
education in their field and getting certified by the Institute of Certified
Travel Agents. Salary range: $25,000 to $50,000.
Corporate Travel Manager
Folks in this job typically work for Fortune 1000 companies, in what’s
basically an in-house travel-agent position. In addition to handling
reservations and ticket-purchasing responsibilities, some corporate travel
managers are responsible for creating and maintaining corporate travel
policies (which codify things like the rates that various levels of employees
can pay for airline tickets and hotels, or which car rental companies
employees can use). Salary range: $45,000 to $75,000.
Some hospitality and tourism organizations offer internships or student co-op
opportunities; these are generally the fastest entrée to full-time work in
the industry. You can also go to school to learn about specific areas of the
industry; Cornell, for instance, offers a renowned hospitality program, and
lots of vocational schools offer programs for aspiring travel agents.
Here's what most employers look for when they hire at all levels:
-
With the ever-increasing focus on keeping customers happy, you need to
enjoy serving people and be perpetually alert as to how to serve them
better.
-
Can you work well in teams? There is a lot of teamwork in many of these
jobs.
-
How do you handle stress? Stress seems to be an ever-present factor in
jobs in this industry, whether you’re a chef, a travel agent, or a tour
guide.
-
Love your employer, love the experience it offers customers, love the
prestige and cachet of your particular niche in the industry. The pay is
low, the hours are long, and advancement is never easy. If you'd buy
what your company is selling, you're a much stronger potential hire.