I believe you may will think this is ridiculous to say something like that but the reason why I say Gen Zers in hospitality are facing jobless situation is all because one day I saw a video from YouTube and I started to realize the robot time is really gonna coming and very soon. So before you start to read this article, let’s have a watch the video below and see what’s going on.
This is the video for Alibaba FlyZoo Hotel which started to operate at end of last year. This hotel starts to using technology to replace manpower. Do you know that the hotel employee number has been reduced more than half. I know is really sad to hear this news but I am unfortunately to inform you, it is the trend. Gen Zers might face a jobless situation.
It may still not convince you. You may think it is just an individual case, but let’s see what others hotel did on 2018: Shangri-La Group started a cooperation with Tencent (Hight technology company in China) for smart hotel development and Intercontinental just built the first 5G hotel smart hotel in Shenzhen, China. All the big hotel chains start to realize the artificial intelligence revolution is coming and they are preparing a stratagem for that. So even we really hate hearing Gen Zers might being jobless in hospitality but it is part of the truth and the most important thing is that we have to start being aware of this tremendous change in our industry.
Base on the video and I can’t stop imaging the future world in hospitality industry, so right now we can together take a look at which skills we need to improve for the future hospitality.
What Skills or abilities Gen Zers need to have in the future hospitality industry?
As we can see in the video, we will need less Front desk agents for check in & check out, we will need less concierges for information, and we will need less waiters and housekeepers. In the future, hospitality will not need staff to do the basic manpower things and those activities will be done by technology. However, hotels may need their staff to have abilities as following:
Basic technology skills Since the future will be about technology therefore getting some basic technology knowledge will help Gen Zers to better perform in the future world in hospitality industry and it will be easier for them to find jobs.
Managing skills Even in the future, less people will be employed in a hotel, I think future hospitality will require even higher managing skills than nowadays. Because even managing less employee but each employee will be required better skills than today, they need to be more expert in one area. And more than that, besides human managing skill, we also need the knowledge for high technology managing skills.
Creativity I think this skill is the most important one that will be required in the future, because if the future world in hospitality will be dominant by high technology which will means more or less all the hotel will be the same. What will make one hotel distinguished from the others? And what will make hospitality even full with technology be still hospitality? CREATIVITY!
Sustainability Sustainability is also a big topic because in the future as the earth is more and more damaged, hotels will have to make a lot of improvement in that area.
What Hotel Institute Montreux should do?
As the Top 10 hospitality schools in the world, we should ask ourselves what Hotel Institute Montreux should do in order to cultivate talents student for the future hospitality industry?
Explain to students the new technologies
I think it will be good if Hotel Institute Montreux could also start to have some class relative to all those skills the future hotel required. For example, artificial intelligence course, system management course or system potential risks, and also we could have some course maybe relative to sustainability or rules and regulations.
Note: Since this article has been written, Hotel Institute has revamped his Management of Technologies course in order to cover the following topics: Big data, artificial intelligence, machine learning and blockchain.
Train students to develop better creative skills
Let’s imagine this, would you like to stay in a hotel with all this technology but without having any “human sense”? Would you like to face those cold machines all the day? I believe you will say no! So I think the most import course I think Hotel Institute Montreux should really consider is creativity development. As I mention before, different hotel even uses same technology but they still need to be distinguished from the others. More than that, the school should help Gen Zers realize that all this technology is for better convenience, but it cannot replace human completely.
Note: Since this article has been written, in addition to existing creative activites (planning a banquet, creating a bar menu...), Hotel Institute Montreux has implemented new type of assignments in which students have to develop their creativity, such as mood board, videos.
Learn customisation
Hotel institute Montreux should have a course that will help students discovering how a hotel could use technology to create a more personalized service and an emotional connection between the hotel and the customer.
Note: Since this article has been written, a new course has been implemented at Hotel Institute Montreux: High Tech and High Touch in Luxury Experiences.
Those courses will more than just help the students well prepare for the future world in hospitality but more important thing, they will guide Gen Zers in their future career. In another hand, it also can increase school’s competitiveness.
If you agree with the article please share your comments for what do you think the Hotel Institute Montreux should do in order to fill in the hospitality industry in the future.
Author: Ms Binbin Zhang, Hospitality Bachelor Student at Hotel Institute Montreux (HIM), from China.
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