Background
The tourism and hospitality industries have evolved into highly dynamic and quickly developing sectors in recent years. International Tourism, Hospitality & Events Management is a segment that combines the studies of general tourism and hospitality industries, and it is a broad field with numerous job options that include restaurant management, and front office reception, among others. According to the US Travel Association report of 2019, domestic and global tourists spent a total of $1.1 trillion ($1,127 billion) in the United States in 2019. This, in return, supported 9 million employments directly, generating $277 billion in payroll earnings and $180 billion in tax revenue for the national, state, and municipal governments (US Travel Association 2019). This paper gives an overview of what International Tourism, Hospitality & Events Management as a discipline means and further describes the major fields encompassed in this discipline of study.
What is International Tourism, Hospitality & Events Management?
International Tourism, Hospitality, and Events management is a field of study that encompasses all areas of the hospitality industry and events on an international level. Areas of hospitality that are encompassed may include hotels, restaurants, cruise liners, theme parks, golf resorts, and conference halls (Zlatanov, 2015). Events and conventions, on the other hand, are a big part of the hospitality business, and they are only getting bigger. In the United States, for instance, employment in the hospitality and events industry is expected to increase by 18% from 2020 to 2030 (Bakhshi et al., 2017). Events can be centered on music, sport, education, or elegance. These events all over the world are creating large sums of money and transforming the way enterprises, hospitality groups, and resorts function.
While some disciplines of study are made up of just a few field categories, the International Tourism, Hospitality & Events Management discipline encompasses practical courses that deal with the customer experience and cater to leisurely rather than fundamental demands. For this reason, it is important to analyze the major fields of International Tourism, Hospitality & Events Management. These fields include the field of food and beverage, travel and tourism, accommodation, and entertainment and recreation field.
Analysis of The Fields of Study Within International Tourism, Hospitality & Events Management
Food and beverage is the largest segment of the international tourism, hospitality & events management discipline. Agwa, Aziz & Khalifa (2017, p. 112) define food and beverage as a field of study that teaches students the fundamentals of culinary cooking and baking, as well as food hygiene and nutrition. This field majorly comprises the following examples of course topics: Culinary arts fundamentals, Nutrition, Baking fundamentals, Skills in the front of the house, principles of human resources, and Accounting and marketing. Students who pursue this field of study are likely to work in food and beverage establishments such as Cafés, hotels, food trucks, pubs and bars, fast-food drive-throughs, nightclubs, and tea and coffee shops. Based on service type, these establishments can be sit-down, full-service, or take-out. The need to study this field is because the personnel goes beyond simply supplying food since customers typically choose restaurants based on the overall customer experience, not just their meal and drink (Johnson et al., 2018). For this reason, people operating in the food and beverage field need to learn overall customer service skills to deliver better services.
The need for travel and tourism is constantly increasing as people look for ways to maximize the experience in their leisure time. Travel and tourism is another field of international tourism, hospitality & events management that encompasses the act of traveling to a distant location away from one’s typical habitat. The tourism and travel field is concerned with the development of tourism, travel industry operations, tourism and travel-related marketing, and general tourism services (Wut, Xu & Wong 2021). The need to study this field is because tourism and travel generate a substantial employment rate in a variety of industries. Vogel (2021) notes that tourism and travel in the United States increase the economy’s revenue, produce thousands of employment opportunities, improve a country’s infrastructure, and foster cultural interchange between outsiders and natives. This shows that the travel and tourism field of study is essential for the overall success of international tourism, hospitality, and events management.
The accommodation field, commonly known as lodging-accommodation, is important in ensuring the comfortable stay of the clients. Page & Connell (2020, p. 217) define an accommodation as a room, facility, or housing that provides shelter for people to stay, sleep, and live in. Management of luxury hotels, opulent resorts, and campsites are all part of this field of study (Page & Connell, 2020, p. 217). It covers everything that, includes beds and other accommodation establishments. Since international tourism, hospitality & events management involves movement across borders, it means that at some point, the clients will require accommodation services and hence the need to study this field.
The entertainment and recreation field comprises a wide range of operations that provide services tailored to cater to customers’ diverse artistic, entertainment, and recreational pursuits. These include venues that safeguard and exhibit artifacts of chronological, cultural, or intellectual interests, provision of services that enable clients to engage in recreational activities or undertake leisure-time interests, and live performances (Oskam & Zandberg, 2019, p. 70). “All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy” (Overstreet, 2018). For this reason, the international tourism, hospitality & events management discipline needs to incorporate the entertainment and recreational field to function effectively.
The main essay that will follow this introductory essay will analyze the impacts of technological advancements on the international tourism, hospitality & events management discipline. This is because technological advancements have changed the way the hospitality industry functions, and this brings a need to understand in what way these advancements have changed operations. The essay will highlight some of the major technological advancements and their negative and positive impacts on the international tourism, hospitality & events management discipline of study.
Reference List
Agwa, Y., Aziz, W. and Khalifa, G., 2017. Evaluating of Food and Beverage Courses in Higher Private Tourism and Hotels Institutes in Alexandria: The Students’ Perspective. International Journal of Heritage, Tourism and Hospitality, 11(2), pp.111-122.
Bakhshi, H., Downing, J.M., Osborne, M.A. and Schneider, P., 2017. The future of skills: Employment in 2030. Pearson.
Johnson, K.R., Park, S. and Bartlett, K.R., 2018. Perceptions of customer service orientation, training, and employee engagement in Jamaica’s hospitality sector. European Journal of Training and Development.
Oskam, J. and Zandberg, T., 2019. The hospitality industry. In Hospitality Experience (pp. 66-96). Routledge.
Overstreet, M. (2018) All work and no play makes Jack a dull boy: The case for play at all educational levels. Reading Psychology, 39(2), pp.216-226.
Page, S.J. and Connell, J. (2020) Tourism accommodation and hospitality services. In Tourism (pp. 216-241). Routledge.
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Vogel, H.L. (2021) Travel industry economics: A guide for financial analysis. Springer Nature.
Wut, T.M., Xu, J.B. and Wong, S.M. (2021) Crisis management research (1985–2020) in the hospitality and tourism industry: A review and research agenda. Tourism Management, 85, p.104307.
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