Hospitality Education: Whom to blame for declining demand?

Blame it on lack of awareness in the society about career prospects in service sector, the image of the hotel industry as a bad employer, or ambiguity in programme nomenclatures offered across different institutions, there is a declining demand towards tourism-related courses in India. With admissions round the corner, institutes outside the National Council ambit are really facing student crunch this year around. P KRISHNA KUMAR finds out.

It is admission time in universities and technical institutes across the country. There is a mad scramble among parents and their wards to gain admissions to their desired institutes and courses. Traditionally, a university degree is still the first priority after schooling in India. People who opt for vocational courses are still meagre two per cent in India, as per the government figures. Among the vocational courses, obviously, Engineering, Medicine, etc., score over other streams and then comes the management courses. Here, also, management courses in tourism-related streams are still the last option for an Indian student. This is notwithstanding the fact that tourism industry is one of the biggest employment generators in the world today. It is a fact that the number of institutions that offer tourism and hospitality courses in the country has increased manifold in the last one decade. But at the same time, the career opportunities in the tourism industry also increased proportionally. If the figures by Ministry of Tourism (MoT), Government of India, are to be believed, the country requires almost two lakh skilled manpower to service the demands of the industry on an annual basis. A survey conducted by an agency, under the aegis of MoT few years ago, pointed out a huge demand and supply gap in the skilled jobs segment in the travel and hospitality industry in the country. Kumari Selja, Union Minister of Tourism, has recently declared that her ministry aims to train five million people in tourism-related disciplines by 2022, looking at the demand in the industry. While there is no denying on the fact that career opportunities are abundant and varied for those who pursue management degree or skill-oriented courses in the travel and hospitality disciplines, the industry as a whole is yet to catch the imagination of the people as a career industry in the country. What is the reason for that? What are the trends, which are being witnessed vis-à-vis enrolment to these courses are concerned? Is the industry responsible for this negative image? What should the government agencies do? Trends There is a palpable decline in terms of the interests being shown towards tourism-related courses in recent years, feels people in the academic field. “It appears that the trend is on the decline. We participated in four education fairs and had very poor response for the hospitality industry as a career,” comments Virender Datta, Chairman, International Institute of Culinary Arts (IICA), New Delhi. He felt that there is a lack of awareness about various skill-oriented programmes, including Chef programmes in the society. “The craze is still for popular career of engineering, technology or regular BBA etc. The reason is primarily on the lack of awareness, poor starting salaries, attitude of the employer as expecting the most but wanting to pay the least,” he informed. Agrees R K Bhandari, Principal, Banarsidas Chandiwala Institute of Hotel Management & Catering Technology, Delhi, “The sheen and glory associated with the hotel management what used to be there in earlier days seems to be loosing fast.” Commenting on this year’s enrolment trends, S C Bagri, Director, Centre for Mountain Tourism & Hospitality Studies, HNB Garhwal University said that the response is ‘poor’. “In government institutes, there are smooth admission procedures but in private colleges, the interest of students is little bit declining. Some of the private institutes who have made intensive marketing are getting positive results. Certainly, there is a lack of interest among students to pursue career in hospitality courses,” he said. Although career opportunities are increasing in the hospitality and tourism industry, the interest towards hospitality and travel related programmes is going down, says Vaskar Sen Gupta, Director, IEC IHM, Greater Noida. He feels that the traditional mindset that hospitality degrees are just about hotel jobs is still high on people’s minds. However, K V Simon, Regional Vice President, American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute (AHLEI) has a different story to say. “I do not have authentic information or accurate statistics to confirm whether interest in hospitality and travel related courses is going up or down. One thing is for sure. Till nineties, the programmes were concentrated in cities. Now, we have an immense spread across the country, including rural areas. This to me is a good change,” he said analysing the trends. Simon refuses to accept that there is lack of interest towards these courses. “If at all there is, it is among the elite, educated, affluent class, which has far more other lucrative areas and opportunities. The poor and the needy will flock to hospitality, travel and tourism,” he argues. S K Saluja, Director, Amity School of Hospitality differs with the opinion that travel and hospitality related courses are not being preferred by people. The interest, according to Saluja, is ‘definitely up’. With the global economy opening up, people are looking at courses, which can fetch jobs in overseas markets. Hospitality courses are one of them, he contends. Whom to blame? Is industry the culprit? While we ponder the reasons, we must not ignore the feudal mindset of our society. We espouse the spirit of ‘Atiti Devo Bhava’ in public, at the same time, we look down upon the service sector, especially jobs in the hospitality sector. None other than Kapil Sibal, Union Human Resource Development Minister, said, “Our society still looks down upon people who opt for vocational courses. It is high time that we prepare our children for diversified occupations; everyone need not go to universities. Empowerment of children can come through vocational education as well,” he opines. People in the education sector blame it on the poor image of the industry for the ills. Long working hours, paltry salaries in the beginning, slow promotion avenues, etc. are cited as reasons. “The issue is students are getting disillusioned after passing out as they do not get the job they thought they shall be getting. This is leading to disillusionment and creating lesser intake of quality students into the industry,” observes Datta. The students are not fully conversant and aware about diverse opportunities in the hospitality sector. The reason for lack of interest can be low salary packages; long working hours and socially it is not considered as a respectable job, says Anand Kumar Singh, Director, MM Institute of Hotel Management, Mullana, Ambala. “No doubt, it is a largest employment generator, but, the industry opts for fresh graduates and trains them as per their needs. Even today, more than 50 per cent people in the industry are unskilled and without formal hospitality and tourism education,” he argues. “Certainly some of the archaic practices of the hospitality industry are detrimental to attracting the modern youth and the industry in general has a negative image from the point of being an employer of choice,” concedes Simon. The industry expects the institutes to supply fully trained personnel, but when it comes to salary and perks, it simply does not sync with what they spent to acquire the qualification. There is a huge mismatch between what the students aspire and what they get from the industry. This mismatch ultimately creates lot of disillusionment within a very short time after getting into the job. “Students are hardly getting the same what they have dreamt or learnt or what they should have got after graduating in Hospitality Management. What they are getting is nothing but situational exploitation which is due to non-uniform education, standards variation in curriculum standards and quality of education which creates large pool of mixed quality output and inefficient HR policies of some of the organisations,” Bhandari states. An ambiguous curriculum The ambiguity in terms of course curriculum is another major irritant in the travel and hospitality education. There are multiplicity of regulators and duplicity in relation to courses. Same courses are run under different nomenclatures across different institutions. While, there are only two formal programmes – one three-year degree programme approved by UGC and four-year degree programme by AICTE – the nomenclature of these programmes differ among institutes. Apart from these formal degrees, there are a number of other programmes in the country, run with affiliations from foreign universities as well as unapproved skill-oriented programmes run by end number of institutions. This, people in the educational sector feel, really creates confusion in the minds of the students and parents. There are voices that point fingers on the poor state of educational system in the country for the present state of affairs. Education has become a lucrative industry for investors, says Kapil Kumar, Chairperson, Faculty of History, School of Social Sciences, IGNOU. Lack of a single regulator is causing a lot of issues in the area of hospitality education. Institutes affiliated to AICTE are the real sufferers in the bargain. Questions are being raised on the folly of offering a four-year degree, when the same degree is offered by National Council and other universities across the country in three years. “There is no holistic view of the hospitality education across the county as a whole. Private colleges are the major sufferers since they are self financing institutions,” says Sen Gupta. Role of MoT While MoT is proactive in formulating policies to overcome the skill shortage in the tourism industry, these steps are more or less confined to institutes in the government sector. There is hardly anything being done to promote and streamline the hospitality education in the country by MoT. However, the recent initiative of the National Council for Hotel Management & Catering Technology (NCHMCT) to take the hospitality curriculum to the school level and the signing of the MoU with Central Board of Secondary Education (CBSE) has been applauded by many. “MoT and its agency, the National Council has a vital role to play if the hospitality courses across the country are to be streamlined. The major problem lies in the fact that although they are considered as pioneers and regulatory authorities in hospitality, the interest shown is only towards the government institutions and state education bodies,” laments Sen Gupta. However, there are differing voices against any interference from the government to streamline the educational system. Instead of government interference, Simon argues for proper interaction between educational entrepreneurs and employer industry to create ‘anticipatory and market responsive’ courses for the industry.