Posted by Yash Sharma on November 15, 2020 10:05:00 AM, For Further Information, Please Connect: MEDIA.MARKETING @WGHIL.COM

Everybody must have heard the phrase – ‘The World is Changing!’

• Technology is the most disruptive change to which service industry has to adapt. Winners are the companies that succeed in freeing up time and resources, helping customers connect with others using technology.
• Customer’s behavior and service provider’s needs are also changing. Everything must go faster and faster. Everyone is looking for rapidity. They want to learn as much as they can and on their own.
• The education system is shifting towards more self-learning, e-learning and tools that can adapt to the capability of each student. The learning happens on multiple devices. The theory is learned online and the practice takes place in videos and platforms like YouTube.

Technology will be the key change agent of the hospitality education of the future. It will shape the way we learn, the way we interact and the way we work. In the next few years, hospitality education certainly will take a different form.

• Course Curriculums will have to adapt to understand the needs of the guests and society of tomorrow. Hospitality vocational programs will still have to focus on skills to operate a hotel. However, students will need to better use and integrate the technology to enhance guest experience.
• Hospitality management programs will concentrate highly on developing soft skills rather than hard skills. A combination of business acumen, entrepreneurial mindset, and psychological study of consumer behavior in the curriculum will position students to better understand the customer. Developing and managing human-digital relationships will be most important.
• The learning environment will be enhanced by technology. Students will spend less time in class and more time in a virtual reality world to develop their creativity and risk taking mindset. Students will be more prepared for the work life as they would have had the chance to experience case studies with augmented reality. Learning a new language or experiencing a different culture and its customs will take a very different meaning through use of technology.
• Online Education will be a key success factor for companies in the future to have a constant and dynamic talent pool. Today’s hospitality industry has an aversion for executive education. Hospitality professionals are usually asked to attend such trainings only as a reactive approach to the changing world but not in anticipation of how the industry will alter in the future.

The biggest challenge will be the implementation of technology that does not overpower the student’s natural learning experience. The professors of tomorrow will also have to be ready for this educational shift. They will have to transform the methodology of interactions with the students.