Hospitality management

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Hospitality industry chart, 2011
Illustration of catering & hospitality services with the areas of hospitality industry (hospitality industry and transitions to the tourism industry) and social hospitality (partial and full supply and transitions to outpatient care).

As Hospitality ( Engl. Hospitality = hospitality) Management refers to the professionals on infrastructural and personal services to various governmental, non-profit and private sector entities. The area is divided into the hospitality industry and social hospitality .

Demarcation

While hotel and restaurant management is essentially focused on running the hospitality industry , the term hospitality management in the hospitality sector also includes other guest-related services and service providers such as hospitality management consultancy , hotel project developers, facility management companies, cruise ships , casinos or amusement parks . In the area of ​​social hospitality, it is particularly related to hospitals and nursing homes. Here it includes the organization of all hospitality services, i.e. services that are provided beyond medicine, nursing and social services ("business operations"). This includes housekeeping (laundry, cleaning, etc.) and catering services, but also quality management and the logistics of the supply processes or specific hotel services for guests; the spectrum ranges from current waste disposal concepts to conference and event management in social institutions and hospitals.

Origin and development

Already in ancient times it was the custom to regard travelers looking for protection and care as friends and guests and to offer them as hosts what the household offered.

The Greeks viewed strangers as protégés of Zeus; he was nicknamed Zeus Xenios (from ancient Greek ξένος, xénos, "foreign", also: "hostile"); among the Romans he was nicknamed jupiter hospitalis ("the hospitable"). Entire tribes and peoples secured hospitality through alliances; individual families and individuals did so through contracts. Gifts were exchanged to greet them, thereby confirming the alliance and “rewarding” the host. The term “private” hospitality thus denoted an ally relationship. In addition, there were houses in which travelers were taken care of ( Xendochion , Matricula, later uniform hospital ). The basis was initially charitable values. It housed travelers ( pilgrims , business travelers, etc.), but also the poor, the elderly and the sick. The houses were mostly small, until the High Middle Ages the majority of the houses offered a maximum of 18 beds.

When the traffic between the cities expanded, the first commercial accommodation establishments emerged . The host became an innkeeper who pursued business interests. At the same time, there was still free accommodation in hospitals. This is the basis for the dichotomy, as it is common today: in hospitality businesses that accommodate guests in exchange for a fee (hospitality industry), and non-profit companies in which people in need are looked after (social hospitality).

Hospitality industry: With increasing competition from inns and inns, the power of guests grew. Special services and hostel equipment were requested depending on the stand, financial possibilities and individual needs; different accommodation establishments and categories emerged. These in turn required company-specific capital and personnel. The maids and servants turned into employees, whose requirement profile continuously developed with the general conditions.

The role of the guest also changed. If he was previously regarded as a “friend” in the sense of an ally, he is now responsible for the economic well-being of the host and thus the hospitality company. Thanks to his individual wishes, he also plays an active role in the design of market-driven offers , which, if successful, are subsequently optimized and offered to the public willing to pay.

In the meantime, the hospitality industry, which has grown into a veritable hospitality industry, performs with its hotels and gastronomic offers as well as the relevant players such as the hospitality management consultancies (e.g. Dr. Luebke, HVS, PKF hotelexperts, tourism consulting & training, Treugast Solutions Group, Zarges von Freyberg Hotel Consulting) makes a decisive contribution to economic well-being.

The history of social hospitality began in the 12th / 13th century, when a movement of secularization began: cities and orders of knights (so-called lay orders, still today e.g. Johanniter , Maltese ) took over existing houses and founded new ones. The basic trait of hospitality changed with secularization: the wealthy were increasingly using hospitals as a preventive measure. They paid benefices in advance that entitle them to live and be cared for there in old age (“ benefice house”). Often they even brought their staff into the house, and when they died, their fortune went to the hospital. With the increasing importance of medicine, the range of services varied: While hospitals originally supplied mainly people with different needs (travelers, the sick, poor, widows, orphans , etc.), institutions developed that became increasingly specialized.

Challenges in hospitality management in German-speaking countries

Compared to other industries, hospitality services are particularly labor-intensive industries . The hospitality industry as part of the tourism industry is also cyclical. As a location-dependent service industry , hospitality companies usually react immediately to economic developments. A general economic upswing usually only results in delayed demand. In the economic downturn, however, an immediate decline in demand is to be expected.

Furthermore, hotel capacities such as guest rooms, conference rooms, spa facilities, restaurant spaces, but also the offers of amusement parks and management consultancies are not storable products and in the figurative sense are perishable every day. Every non-sold guest room, every missing park visitor or the unsold daily work of the management consultancy represents an irretrievable loss of income for the company.

In addition to the high costs ( ancillary wage costs , modernization investments) and the procurement problems for qualified and motivated workers (due to unfavorable working hours and a relatively low wage level ), the price and predatory competition are the main problems within the industry. The demographic change in the context of an aging society is progressing in Germany, as in many other industrialized countries, which results in further tension in the labor market. The main reasons are the drastic drop in the number of births and the increased life expectancy. An increasing number of older people are reaching retirement age and have to be looked after by a smaller number of younger workers. The large hotel companies are already working on strategies for effective employer branding and implementing appropriate measures.

In the area of ​​social hospitality, there are two particular challenges to be overcome in the 21st century: demographic changes and the financial situation. As a result of demographic changes, a growing number of people in need of support contrasts with a shrinking number of people of working age. This challenge can only be cushioned to a limited extent by the influx of people from other countries and cultures. In addition, mastery of the German language has to be a prerequisite in many areas of personal care, this applies in particular to the care of small children who have yet to learn to speak and of people with dementia who can no longer cope with cognitive challenges . This demographic situation is also important (in view of the financial situation of the houses hospital financing , nursing home financing , home charges , etc.): In the area of inpatient care, the financial situation is tense. Houses are at least partly financed by means of society (public funds, insurance from tax revenues, insurance contributions, etc.). Decreasing income therefore inevitably leads to greater restrictions. At the same time, the potential costs are rising due to medical progress and greater individualization of services. Accordingly, the outpatientization of services in both elderly care and in hospitals is being promoted.

As a result, the hospitality industry and social hospitality are moving closer together again. Hospitals offer services for medical tourism, nursing homes offer hotel rooms for relatives. In Düsseldorf, the former motherhouse of the Kaiserswerther Diakonie has been converted into a hotel with a special charm. In particular, providers in the catering industry have long since abolished the traditional division into social and industrial areas: children's meals, school meals or meals on wheels, for example, are offered by hospital kitchens as well as by private providers.

Management training in the sector in German-speaking countries

Training in the hospitality sector is traditionally an apprenticeship. In hotels, hotel and restaurant specialists are dominant; in social institutions, home economics is the basis of the benefits. In both areas, due to the increasing complexity of the provision of services, academic training has been recognized as useful for several years.

Particular efforts can be observed on the part of the hotel industry in the recruitment of above-average well-trained executives and talented junior executives in order to be able to meet the increased guest wishes and the increased business requirements. For these reasons, the training path for hotel managers in particular has changed in recent years. Up to now, the professional career of the next generation of management staff in the German-speaking area has mostly led through the traditional path of an industry-specific apprenticeship ( hotel manager , hotel clerk , cook, etc.), several years of professional experience and subsequent attendance at a two-year hotel management school . Because small and medium-sized hotel companies are increasingly being displaced from the market as a result of the expansion of the international group hotel industry, it can be assumed that this process will make global management know-how a key factor in success, so that a university degree in economics will become more important as a prerequisite for a career at management level . Bachelor's and Master's programs in the framework of Hospitality Management (z. B. University of Applied Sciences in Munich , Free University of Bolzano , Heilbronn University , University of Applied Sciences Kempten , International University Bad Honnef • Bonn (IUBH) ) provide a sound education in business administration with specialization in hotel and restaurant management, supplemented by hospitality consulting and project development. The Faculty of Tourism at the Munich University of Applied Sciences, which has existed since 1997, can be seen as a pioneer in the academization process in the industry, which introduced Germany's first hospitality master’s course in 2010 through impulses from Hospitality Management Professors Burkhard von Freyberg and Axel Gruner. This degree offers in-depth knowledge for the entry into entrepreneurship, qualifies for management tasks within the industry and, if necessary, enables further academic qualification in the form of a doctorate .

In social hospitality , housekeeping professions have so far been the main training in caring for guests. Since the 1960s, the degree in ecotrophology has been established, which qualifies in household and nutritional sciences. Oecotrophologists who specialize in household science have, however, been in the minority since the course was founded. Today, nutritional and food technology content is often taught in the oecotrophology subject. At the moment there is only one university that offers the opportunity to do a doctorate in domestic economics (University of Giessen, Institute for Household Economics and Consumption Research).

The Niederrhein University of Applied Sciences offers a specialization in the hospitality sector both in the hospitality industry and in social hospitality in the oecotrophology department with a degree in Catering and Hospitality Services (B.Sc.). The course is not purely business-oriented, but has a multidisciplinary structure. It is the only degree program in Germany that offers specialization in the broad spectrum of care services.

literature

  • Marco A. Gardini (Ed.): Handbook Hospitality Management. Frankfurt 2009.
  • Axel Gruner (Ed.): Management training in the hotel industry. Berlin 2010.
  • Axel Gruner: From hospitality to the hotel industry. In: 110 Years of the General Hotel and Gastronomy Newspaper. No. 42, October 16, 2010, pp. B8-B11
  • Axel Gruner (Hrsg.): Management Lexicon Hotel and Gastronomy. Frankfurt 2008.
  • Tobias Warnecke: IHA Hotel Market 2017. Berlin 2017.
  • Michael Pauly: From the hostel to the retirement home: Functional change in medieval hospitals using selected examples from the Maas-Mosel-Rhine area. In: Michael Matheus (Ed.): Functional and structural change in late medieval hospitals in a European comparison. Alzeyer Colloquium 1999. Published by the Institute for Historical Regional Studies at the University of Mainz e. V. Stuttgart 2005, pp. 101-116.
  • Armin Poggendorf : Entertaining guests, restoring the spirit of life. Hamburg 1995.
  • Angelika Sennlaub, Jens Wetterau: Academics for out-of-home supplies. In: Home Economics and Science. 02/2012, pp. 90-92.
  • Angelika Sennlaub: Household Sciences and Hotel Industry. An approach to discussion. In: Home Economics and Science. 02/2012, pp. 78-86.
  • Hans Peter Tews: Housing and care in old age in historical change. In: Wüstenrot Foundation (ed.): Living in old age. Stuttgart / Zurich 2005, pp. 15–39.
  • Burkhard von Freyberg (ed.): Hospitality Controlling, 2nd edition, Berlin 2014.
  • Burkhard von Freyberg (Ed.): Hospitality Development, 2nd edition, Berlin 2014.
  • Burkhard von Freyberg, Axel Gruner, Laura Schmidt: Managing innovations in hotels and restaurants , Stuttgart 2016.
  • Burkhard von Freyberg, Axel Gruner, Marina Lang: Successful in the private hotel industry, 2nd edition, Stuttgart 2017.
  • Karla U. Henschel, Axel Gruner, Burkhard von Freyberg: Hotelmanagement, 4th edition , Munich 2013.

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