Go to the Top in Hotel and Restaurant Management

A degree course in Hospitality Management involves a lot more than cooking up an attractive buffet or making up the beds in the guests' rooms each morning. Managing a restaurant, a hotel or a combination means knowing how to run a professional kitchen, how to hire personnel, maintain the business accounts, make purchases to keep a stable—but not excessively overstocked—inventory, and how to translate your skills into a strong leadership to ensure the success of your restaurant or hotel.
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Twenty-first century managers need college educations
According to the Directory of Schools, having a college education is becoming increasingly important for those wanting a career in hotel and restaurant management. New developments in technology that allow travelers to access information, make travel arrangements and book their motels on the internet, just for starters, add a complexity to the hospitality career that didn't exist in the days of the little mom and pop side street motels. Furthermore, in spite of the number of empty motels you see across the country, U. S. residents alone spent $448.5 billion on domestic travel in 1999. The numbers had a set back after 9/11, but have continued to grow in recent years. Travel and tourism is the country's top retail sales industry.

Hotels and lodging vary from resort hotels to campgrounds. The United States has nearly 60,000 establishments that provide lodging, many of which provide additional services like restaurants, coffee shops, meeting rooms, gift shops, barber and beauty shops, laundry and valet services, health centers, swimming pools, and theater centers. Larger hotels also have airline counters and car rental services. The largest hotels receive a significant portion of their revenue from their conference room rentals and often provide a complete package consisting of not only the conference room and guest rooms, but also including health spas, game and fitness rooms, restaurants and coffee shops and one or two fast-food centers.

If managing a major hotel is more than you are bargaining for, you'll be happy to know that the economy lodges—motels without restaurants, lounges, or meeting rooms—have also continued to grow and are less expensive to build and operate than a luxury hotel. Furthermore, you can acquire the education for the hospitality career of your dreams, through select colleges, entirely Online.

Salaries As Big As Your Dreams
According to ACTEonline, salaries in the hospitality/restaurant management industry range from $19,000 (the manager trainee) to $350,000 or more for a president or chief executive officer. Of all the possible hospitality careers, the only one for which on-the-job training is the only required education is the manager trainee. The assistant unit manager, chefs, kitchen managers and catering managers all need associate degrees as well as on the job training. The unit managers, training directors, district managers, executive chefs' and other directors all need a bachelor's degree, and those in the top positions, such as Chief Operating Officer, Director of Operations, owner and President or Chief Executive generally have masters' degrees. However, even those who advance no further than the associate degrees can earn into the $60,000 range depending on geographic location and job title.

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