HOSPITALITY

Hospitality within Travel and Tourism Industry

Introduction

The purpose of this review is to identify the key hospitality and tourism themes as reflected by articles published in the Cornell Hotel and Restaurant Administration Quarterly during the years 1990-1995, the years included in the Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Trends database. Cornell Quarterly is a premier publication geared towards hospitality executives, managers and consultants in the lodging, resort and food service sector, as well as academics and students in business and hotel and restaurant management schools.

This review identifies five prominent themes, each with related sub-themes, which are intended to reflect the major issues and trends arising during the review period. These themes are presented in tabular format listing the author(s), sub-theme and the focus of the research, and are accompanied by a written discussion of the major issues. The five theme areas include:

training and education;

resources and organizations;

and food service operations;

operations and development; and

and tourism management.

Hospitality training and education

The sub-themes in Table I focus on the following issues: employee training programmes and management development; hospitality education and job expectations; and technology in training and education.

Employee training programmes and management development

Haywood suggests that the most effective training programmes are ones that convey information and demand measurable performance improvements that match predetermined goals. His research indicates that firms committed to increasing effectiveness and competitiveness have an organizational environment that allows employees to function at their best. However, Conrade et al. found in their research that many lodging companies in the USA do not offer planned, quality employee-training activities and spend much less than non-hospitality businesses on such training programmes.

Shaw and Patterson describe what Canadian hospitality managers look for in external management-development programmes, including those subject areas that require more education and training. Their research reveals that the highest-rated subject areas include service quality, motivation and training, and communication skills. The least-rated subjects include the areas of advertising, personal selling, and research methods. Marketing topics are rated higher overall by lodging managers than by food-service managers, while each rated accounting, finance, and ethics in the mid-range.

Hospitality education and job expectations

Goodman and Sprague report that, owing to the expanding role of services in the world economy, business schools have begun to address the needs of service operations. Concurrently, many hospitality education programmes have begun to deviate from a strict hospitality management orientation towards a more general business orientation. The authors suggest that, in order to serve the needs of both students and industry adequately, hospitality schools must redirect their orientation towards the needs of the hospitality industry. Clark and Arbel emphasize the need to globalize the student bodies in hospitality schools in order to keep pace with the international nature of the hospitality industry.

Technology in training and education

Durocher describes the major drawbacks of the two most prevalent training methods used currently in the hospitality industry. He criticizes the “buddy system”, in which one employee trains another, saying that it often leads to the amassing of bad habits. Also, he points out the inefficiency of using managers to handle ...