Hotel schools, business schools and liberal arts programs produce thousands of graduates each year with all sorts of skillsets.

Hotel school students are taught from day one that their career will be to serve their guests, their employees, their employers, and their other stakeholders. Most business school graduates go into services such as banking, accounting, sales, marketing and law, but they are often not even aware that serving others is what their jobs are all about. Hotel school students do not reject service - they embrace it.

Question is whether you think that hospitality schools and universities still deliver talent with the sorts of competencies and skills you are looking for today, or whether graduates from generic business schools stand an equal chance during the hiring process.

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Marloes Knippenberg
Marloes Knippenberg
CEO, Kerten Hospitality

“In my experience, hospitality schools do pretty well in differentiating themselves from general business education. When I meet hospitality graduates, whether through the panels I participate in or our Talent Tank internship program, I've generally been impressed by their astute approach and the meaningful connection they have with the 'real' world compared to general business graduates.

We're definitely seeing a changing tide, with schools starting to embrace – and in some cases 'own' – key areas such as innovation, technology and sustainability. There is real value in this for the industry but I would also like to see graduates coming to us having had more exposure to the concept of wider asset value, and Hospitality Management versus Hotel Management.

There should be a stronger accent on value creation for owners, developers, and there should be a stronger focus on creating new style customer journeys, with the ability to keep on changing this. From retail to technology and training, to new ways of managing human capital and alternative business solutions, it is something that is still "add on", while in my view, this should in essence become the heart of a curriculum. In a dynamic business such as Kerten Hospitality, this is particularly important as things move at such a fast pace and we're always looking for new talent who can hit the ground running and adapt to ever-changing situations. And last but not least, it's time to relook at the uniform rules at these schools, the reality is that the industry is moving away from this and instead adopting a more personal and customized approach; let's connect with reality.”

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