Contemporary Hospitality Industry Assignment - Hotel Chain Recruitment for Skills

Learning Outcomes -

• Examine the current structure, scope and size of the hospitality industry.
• Explore current and anticipated skills requirements in the hospitality industry.

Assignment Brief and Scenario -

Imagine that during your Higher National Diploma in Hospitality Management, you have been taken on as an intern by a three to five-star hotel chain with wider interests in the international hospitality industry.

Your first placement is with the hotel chains' Talent Management team. Your job is to attract and develop staff members who can help to realise its expansion and growth plans. The aim is to ensure that the company has the right staff with the right skills to be a successful player in the fast-moving, ever-changing hospitality industry.

One opportunity to do this is at an upcoming University Recruitment Fair. You have been tasked with producing an academic poster and a series of factsheets that can be used to promote working in the hospitality industry and attract people to the company.

You need to be ready to make an academic poster presentation, so you will have to prepare the poster containing the information you want people to see, and then be able to explain it to viewers in a short speech and answer follow-up questions.

The content should provide an overview of, or even insight into, the hospitality industry; and in particular include; -

(1) an exploration of the different sectors of hospitality and the many different types of businesses that operate within it, and the diversity of the products and services they offer; and

(2) an evaluation of how the hospitality industry contributes to the local, national and global economy.

If you want to develop your poster and presentation to a higher level, you should add;

(3) an evaluation of how global growth, and the use of franchising and licensing agreements, have influenced the development of the hospitality industry, and contributed to its total economic worth.

Your work will be stronger if you can give specific examples or details or offer some analysis.

You are also required to produce written material for use in a set of factsheets that can be used at the recruitment fair. You are told that you must include the following: -

(1) an examination of the different operational and functional departments within a large hospitality organisation; providing an organisational chart to explain the interrelationships between the different departments;

(2) an examination of at least 4-6 different employment roles that can be found in operational departments of hospitality organisations; and the skills required for these roles; and

(3) a review of the skills gaps and shortages in such roles.

Again, if you want or are able, you can develop your material to a higher level by adding;

(4) an analysis of how skills gaps of the kind you have identified are impacting on the hospitality businesses, and how they can respond to resolve these issues.

Writing separate material for each of these points would be a good way to carry out this task; but other approaches, for example taking points together, are possible. Equally, it is anticipated that you will use the four-or-five-star international hotel chain you are working for as your example of "a large hospitality organisation" for the first of these points at least, and preferably make reference to it all the way through.