Why choose a career in luxury hospitality?
So why should an ambitious individual like you be targeting luxury careers as your hospitality employment playground? And where should you be directing your efforts to get hired?
There are several answers to the first question, but in these uncertain times perhaps the most important answer is that it’s a profession with a solid future. The wider luxury industry is known for being recession-proof, and when you couple that with our innate desire to travel and experience new things, then luxury hotels and resorts will only grow in number while also becoming more diverse in the experiences they offer.
Another factor to consider is that luxury hospitality is the perfect career choice if you are a ‘people person’; and especially if you find joy in making others happy. The ability to deliver happiness at a person-to-person level is a major attraction to many who work in hospitality, and not just at the luxury end of the spectrum.
Skills needed for a career in luxury hospitality
At the top of my list are the soft skills – problem solving, empathy, teamwork, communication, and so on. A major contributing factor in great service is anticipation combined with emotional intelligence and good interpersonal skills.
For a global business like hospitality, cultural intelligence and adaptability are also extremely useful soft skills to possess. The final soft skill is creativity – or what I prefer to call the ability to conjure the unexpected.
What about the hard skills, also referred to as technical skills? Business acumen, strategic thinking, and so on. It is a tough old world out there, and to be the best you do need a mixture of hard and soft skills. It’s why courses on financial accounting, data analysis, revenue management, corporate finance and similar topics are integrated into the academic portion of our hospitality Bachelor’s degree.
Career paths available in luxury hospitality
On the topic of career success, let’s look at some of the paths to pursue for a luxury hospitality professional.
The obvious choices are 5* hotels and high-end restaurants. However, as the worlds of luxury and hospitality increasingly converge, you’ll have opportunities in retail, in private travel, but also the VIP elements in sports. In the latter case, there are certain sports – Formula 1, golf, showjumping, yachting – which are playgrounds for luxury brands and VIP experiences. It is a massive global marketplace, and one where exquisite hospitality skills are hard currency.
With lines increasingly blurring between the worlds of luxury goods and luxury hospitality it’s opening up incredible opportunities to work at what we call the “luxury-hospitality crossroads” – for example, without straying beyond the LVMH group it would be possible to spend part of your career in luxury fashion brands with Louis Vuitton and part in luxury hotels at Cheval Blanc. If luxury is your passion, that’s a pretty exciting prospect.
Jacquie Lutz is Head of Career Services & Industry Relations at Glion Institute of Higher Education.
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