WHAT IS HOTEL MANAGEMENT ALL ABOUT?

Managing a hotel comes with a range of responsibilities. You must be able to adapt to new
challenges, help different departments and ensure the hotel maintains a standard of excellence.
As a hotel manager, you will be responsible for overseeing and having a strong knowledge of
finance, planning, service and organization. While you have a team of managers working
alongside you, as hotel manager you have to lead rather than follow. You must also make sure
your staff are managing their time and departments efficiently, whether that be through
improving their monthly profits or simply ensuring a guest’s expectations are exceeded.

You must have strong attention to detail, leadership and teamwork skills. At some hotels,
depending on the size and type, you may find yourself dealing with a lot more day-to-day tasks
than you would at a more prestigious place. You may also have less contact with guests, but
you’ll spend time monitoring the business through regular meetings.

A hotel manager is confident, approachable and adventurous. They aren’t afraid to try new
things. Excited to experience new cultures. And they know the importance of teamwork. If you
want a career that’s full of challenges, interesting people and exciting developments, hotel
management could be just what you’re looking for. Here’s all you wanted to know about hotel
management.

An evolving industry

The world of hospitality continues to expand. It is one of the world’s fastest-growing industries,
and will create over 80 million new jobs over the next ten years. The travel and tourism sector
will account for one in nine jobs by the year 2026. A hotel manager needs to know the current
industry trends. They are aware that their hotel needs to evolve and change in order to stay
current. At our recent Glion Luxury Conference, hospitality leaders told our students about what
it takes to keep up-to-date. “To be successful, you have to create emotions,” said Philippe
Tardivel. “Whatever you create has to be extraordinary, and you have to go the extra mile.”

Industry experts gave our students valuable info at our Luxury Conference

A hotel manager operating in the modern marketplace faces the challenge of creating positive
emotional experiences at a time when automation and AI are becoming commonplace in
hospitality. Today’s travellers still want the human aspect, but they also want efficiency and
hassle-free processes. It’s the hotel manager’s responsibility to combine these two elements in
a way that benefits both the guest and the business.

What do you need?

You need a range of soft and hard skills to be a successful hotel manager. Furthermore, you also
need to gain first-hand experience of the industry. Many future managers embark on
internships to gain more experience, working at hotels of varying ranges, reputations and
locations. This is also a great way to complement your degree.
If you can, open a hotel

An excellent experience for any budding hotel manager is to take part in a hotel opening. It can
be the new site of a leading brand or a boutique independent, either way seeing what it takes to
get a hotel started gives you a true understanding of all the moving parts. Unlike taking a job at
an established hotel, where you have processes in place to learn and master, at an opening
hotel, you’re responsible for installing or even creating those processes.

From registration cards to restaurant menus, the smallest and biggest elements, that you would
usually take for granted, will need researching and creating, all to a deadline. It’s usually all
hands to the pump and it’s a great opportunity to cross roles and gain experience in different
departments as you take on duties outside your comfort zone. It may even be that you can’t
work in the hotel, as it’s not finished, so you’ll be doing all of this from a nearby office.

The skills you need to have include communication, teamwork and organization. However, you
also need to understand and appreciate the challenges every department faces. It is important
you spend time working or shadowing each part of a hotel, from finance to housekeeping. This
ensures that you will have the awareness and experience to assist these departments when you
become a manager.

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