Hotel and restaurant management education

The hotel and restaurant sector (hereafter called the hospitality industry), as a modern economic activity was shaped after World War Two and is closely linked with the development of mass tourism and the rapid growth of the airline industry. The hospitality and tourism industries together, are the largest and fastest growing industries in the world. The World Travel and Tourism Council (WTTC) estimated that hospitality and tourism are directly and indirectly responsible for 11% of gross domestic product, 200 million jobs, 8% of total employment and 5.5 million new jobs per year up to 2010. Today, the hospitality industry is a steadily growing sector, generating a significant number of jobs globally.\ud The sector has proven to be extremely resilient to the global economic crisis and the volatile business environment. The rapid development and expansion in traditional destinations such as Europe and North America as well as new markets, such as the Middle East and Asia, requires the preparation and development of the future generation of hotel and restaurant managers (hereafter called hospitality managers). Given the growing demand for skilled hospitality managers, the numbers of enrollments in undergraduate hospitality, tourism and leisure programs (HTLPs) has increased significantly since the 1980s. For example, the National Centre for Education Statistics reported that numbers of HTLPs have rapidly grown in the USA, increasing from 128 in 1986 to 307 in 2010. Nowadays, hospitality management programs are a well-established part of tertiary management education (higher, post-secondary or further education) and it is expected to grow bigger in the following years. This entry explores the hospitality management curriculum approaches in terms of structure, content and future developments