Issue link: https://www.e-digitaleditions.com/i/62201
$463 billion worldwide. It seems logical, therefore, that trav- el and hospitality organizations worldwide should be looking to business schools to train new managers for their hotels, restaurants, resorts, and airlines. In fact, a number of business schools and freestanding hotel schools around the world have dedicated themselves to just that cause. While many hospitality programs were born in human V ourism is one of the fastest-growing and most important economic sectors in the world. According to the World Tourism Organization, more than 700 million tourists chose to travel in 2002; in 2001, international tourism accounted for development and food and nutrition programs, today many more are located within schools of business or in entirely self-contained colleges. What they provide—even when they carry a name such as the William F. Harrah College of Hotel Admin i - stra tion at the University of Nevada Las Vegas—is far more than a grounding in hotel basics, says Stuart H. Mann, dean of that school. "The name 'col lege of hotel administration' is really a mis- nomer," he says. "We offer management in the fields of lodg- ing, restaurants, conventions and meetings, recreation, entertainment, and tourism retailing." The growth in hospitality degree programs has directly inevitable that as hotels and restaurants are transformed from family-owned enterprises to multinational companies with thousands of employees, hospitality management programs will become more international in nature and focus on the challenges of running global corporations. Accent on Flavor While students in hospitality classes learn the basic function- al disciplines of finance, marketing, and OB, specialty cours- es often define the programs. For instance, at the Maastricht Hotel Management School, students take courses on the sus- tainable development of tourist areas. At UNLV, specialty areas cover gaming management, wines and spirits, and food production. Diversity manage- ment and gastronomy courses flourish at the Oxford Brookes University in Oxford, England. Many hospitality schools also feature facilities rarely found in the gen- eral run of b-schools: in-house restau rants and hotels. The Brookes restaurant in Oxford is a commercial paralleled the growth in the tourism industry, according to Jeroen Oskam of the Maastricht Hotel Management School in the Netherlands. When a region sees an upsurge in tourism and competition increases, he says, "the quality of the tourist product becomes a decisive factor. At that point, hotels and other companies realize that having a well-pre- pared staff will be the key to success." Similarly, the changes in hospitality programs mirror the changes in the industry itself, Oskam notes. He expects the future of tourism to be affected by demographic factors such as aging populations, and economic growth in emerging countries that will lead them to welcome tourists. It's want them to work in a realistic environment," says Donald Sloan, head of Oxford Brooke's Department of Hos pitality, Leisure and Tourism Man age ment. Cornell University's School of Hotel Administration also full-time team of chefs. Much of the labor, howev- er, is provided by first-year students who work in the kitchen for one day a week. "Before they go into industry, we restaurant open to the public and staffed by a boasts a restaurant, as well as a hotel, at its campus in Ithaca, New York. While breakfast and lunch at Rhapsody are served by a professional staff, dinners are run entirely by students four nights a week. Students rotate between serving as staff and acting as managers who assign cooking and serving tasks to their classmates. "There's a static menu that's regularly offered, but the managers must come up with the specials that are offered that week," says Brad Walp, director of graduate enrollment and student services. The night's work also usual- ly includes a research component. "For example, one team might decide to measure some facet of customer satisfaction, BizEd MAY/JUNE 2003 43