Hotel and hospitality

Hotel and hospitality

This sector has always been seen as a potential area for large-scale recruitment. But global happenings do affect the sector. When September 11 happened, globally tourism industry went into a tailspin. Political stability is very essential for this sector to boom.

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BRIEF DESCRIPTION
Hotel industry is largely classified into the following operational divisions - Front office, Housekeeping, Food & Beverage Production and Food & Beverage Service apart from human resources department, sales and marketing, finance & accounting, information technology etc where recruitment is normally made from management schools.

Jobs at entry level start as the following:
a. MANAGEMENT TRAINEE-Those who enter hotels as management trainees have better prospects both in terms of compensation, growth prospects and possibility of working with premium segment hotels. One starts as a junior manager and moves upwards as assistant manager, deputy manager, manager and finally making it to position of general manager. While a management graduate would take 12-14 years while stewards take approximately 25-30 years.

b. STEWARD-A steward typically starts his career as at the lowest bottom level in a hotel which may mean as a dish washer whereas or a bell boy whereas a management trainee starts as a supervising officer. Both of them will in many cases have similar qualification (degree/diploma in hotel management), but are separated at the time of interview based on their merit.

EXPECTED REMUNERATION
(Depends on a number of factors that include quality of institution one comes from, possessed skill sets, communication skills, overall personality and the hotel to hotel.)
a. Rs. 6,000-8,000 per month (5-star hotel in metros)
b. Rs. 2,500-4,000 per month (depending upon the kind of category of hotel)

SOCIAL STANDING
Good. Perceived as being a part of services industry and has been gaining acceptance as it affords easy mobility in terms of employment and job opportunities.

YEARS OF TRAINING REQUIRED
180 colleges or institutes (AICTE accredited or Foreign University affiliation), hotel management in the private sector. Institutes run by Food Craft Institutes (FCIs), give one-year certificate course. Most others have the 3-year diploma/degree. Some grant a 4-year bachelor degree. Since the bachelor degree in India can only be granted by a University, the colleges giving degrees are either part of a University or are affiliated to one.

PLACES TO TRAIN
180 institutions across the country, private and public sector. There are 36 colleges in the government sector - 21 Institutes of Hotel Management & Catering Technology (IHMCT) and 15 Food Craft Institutes (FCI).

PLACEMENTS
Hotels. Also non-hospitality services sector like call centres, telecom companies, baking, insurance, PR companies, malls, multiplexes, industry associations, constancy companies, cruise liners, air lines, food catering companies, hospitals, railways etc both nationally and internationally. This is possible because most of the hotel management course train in many fields that of particular importance in the services industry. So, apart from hotel operations, hotel management students are trained for overall personality and industrial training.

CHANCES OF GOING ABROAD
Not many

WORK HOURS
Outwardly a glamorous industry; operational wings are very demanding; 12-14 hours a day on an average.

PERKS/OTHER BENEFITS
Vary from hotel to hotel. The following shows a range: meals in the hotel, transportation (pick up and drop), medical, education allowance for kids, advance courses in management for fast trackers and foreign travels, overseas postings, uniform allowance, laundry allowance, conveyance allowance, bonus and incentives on exceeding set performance levels.

The facts and figures quoted here are indicative, not exhaustive. These are broad industry estimates and do not pertain to any particular company.

For getting an overall picture of the Hospitality industry HindustanTimes.com spoke to Pooran Chandra Pandey, Assistant Secretary General - Research, Federation of Hotel & Restaurant Associations of India, New Delhi.