Week 1: Introduction to Hospitality & Tourism

Introduction to Hospitality & Tourism

Hospitality Management includes operating and managing hotels, motels, restaurants, bars, casinos, theme parks, recreation centers, country clubs, cruise ships, convention centers, and any place where people gather. On the other hand, tourism management deals with marketing and supporting tourism, which includes dealing with travel and services. There is overlap between these two—get the people to a location so that they can take advantage of the facilities and services. People travel for business (meetings, conferences, and workshops) as well as pleasure (short getaways, stop-overs, and long vacations).

Internationally, hospitality and tourism is one of the largest industries. According to the World Travel & Tourism Council (World Travel & Tourism Council, 2019) (WTTC), travel and tourism is one of the largest economic sectors globally, and that sector supports 10% of the jobs.  WTTC reports that this sector brought in 10.4% of the gross domestic product in 2018, which was a 3.9% growth from the previous year. As a result of this growth, new jobs are being created.

Some other interesting facts from WTTC’s (Travel & Tourism: Benchmarking Research Trends 2019, 2019) research include:

  • Travel & tourism contribute more to the global GDP than mining, banking, automotive, and agriculture.
  • More new jobs are created in the travel & tourism industry than those in financial services, health, banking, automotive, and mining.
  • The growth rate for travel & tourism is higher than automotive and health care.

Careers in Hospitality

The main job sectors within hospitality are:

  • Accommodations (hotels, motels, resorts, bed & breakfast, resorts, time shares, and vacation rentals)
  • Food and beverages (restaurants, cafes, bars, nightclubs, coffee shops, and caterers)
  • Travel (airlines, cruises, railways, coach services, casinos, car rental, and travel agents).

Careers in Tourism

While we just discussed the travel sector as being part of the hospitality industry, travel also fits within the tourism industry. According to RevFine (Travel and Tourism Industry; An Complete Overview of All Activities, 2019), the main difference is that the tourism is concerned with people staying at least one night for some type of activity and then returning home. Travel is solely the means to go from one place to another. The main tourism job sectors are those listed within hospitality as well as agri-tourism, tourist information, tour guides, shopping, casinos, financial services, and education,

For More Information

Here are some organizations and websites for more information:

References

Travel and Tourism Industry; An complete Overview of All Activities. (2019, September 18). Retrieved from Revfine.com: https://www.revfine.com/travel-and-tourism/

World Travel & Tourism Council. (2019, September 15). Retrieved from World Travel & Tourism Council: https://www.wttc.org/ Links to an external site.

1280px-CC-BY-SA_icon.svg.png  Source: Velda Arnaud, Blue Mountain Community College, Pendleton, Oregon