Alternative career options for hotel management students vary widely. Those who want to leave the hospitality industry should choose alternative jobs cautiously. Career change from hospitality is not a straightforward thing. You might have to advance your education to gain new skills.
Additionally, switching to a new job requires patience because of the learning curve. If you have considered all crucial factors, this comprehensive guide is yours. We will discuss the best alternative career options for hotel management students and provide other helpful tips.
Will you shift within or outside the hospitality industry?
Since the hospitality industry is broad, your choice is flexible. You can switch your current career to a more exciting job in the same industry. Then again, you can leave the career paths within the hotel management industry and choose a new field.
Your choice depends on your passion and overall experience in the current job. If a hospitality career was not your first choice, you could leave it. The alternative job may offer you less financial security but more career satisfaction. Are you ready for the consequences?
Consider your financial stability when changing jobs, as quick success is not guaranteed. Ensure that your new career path provides many job opportunities. Additionally, check if you can sponsor your studies if you need to pursue a new degree course. Below are alternative career options for hotel management students inside and outside the industry.
Alternative career options for hotel management students
Which industries can I break into with my hospitality experience? Most of you are seeking answers to this question. The following alternative career paths suit you best.
1. Team Leader
Hospitality industry students are in the customer service industry. They are familiar with different procedures that improve customer care service. Hence, you can become a team leader in another company within your field or in another industry. Your analytical mind will help you solve problems and provide positive leadership to the team. Thus, team leader makes one of the top alternative career options for hotel management students.
2. Communication Coordinator
A hotel management degree is enough to get you the communication coordinator position. You have evaluation and data presentation skills. Also, you have adequate business management knowledge to achieve productivity in pre-organized tasks.
Besides, your hospitality industry experience gives you the capacity to perform under pressure. You have excellent project management and time management skills and can work alone or in a team. The communication coordinator position is among the best alternative jobs for hotel management graduates.
3. Tour manager
One of the most luring alternative career options for hotel management students is tour manager. As a tour manager, you can work within your hospitality industry but in a different area. Whether you work as a chef or housekeeper, you can manage tours for clients.
As a tour manager, you have flexibility to make travel arrangements for local and foreign tourists. Tour managers have an opportunity to meet different people, learn new languages, and improve their business management skills. Multitasking is also inevitable in your new role, but it should not stress you if you have worked in hotels.
Working under pressure is the norm in the hotel management sector, and it should be easy to handle when you become a tour manager. As a tour manager, you can open your company or find a job in some organization. If you have perfect leadership skills, tour manager role is among perfect alternative career options for hotel management students.
4. Recruitment Consultant
It is easy to assume that a recruitment officer needs a Human Resource Management degree. However, your hotel management degree offered some units in workforce planning. Working in the hospitality and tourism industry has also exposed you to distinct roles, including HR.
Hence, you have what it takes to become a recruitment consultant. It is among the leading alternative career options for hotel management students. Your comprehension skills in written and spoken English should help you conduct interviews. Besides, you can prioritize and organize different tasks for employees.
Recruitment consultants do not have to work only in the hotel industry. They can find work elsewhere or start a consultancy business. A similar job you can apply for is the HR assistant. If you have worked in the administration department before, the HR assistant role should be easy to handle.
5. Sales Representative
Even if you are not in marketing, your hospitality degree allows you to perform well in the sales representative role. You learned critical thinking, action planning, and crucial marketing tips during your course.
Besides, anyone can sell something if they can establish a proper relationship with the customer. Working in the hotel industry exposes you to all kinds of customers. As you already have excellent interpersonal and communication skills, you will perform well in a sales representative role.
As you can guess, sales representatives can work for any company, making this role one of the most preferred alternative career options for hotel management students.
6. Property Manager
When searching for alternative career options for hotel management students, consider the property manager position. In your degree course, you have encountered relevant studies, including housekeeping. You can manage and maintain guest houses, resorts, hotel rooms, and other buildings.
The property manager role can be exciting as a personal business or in employment. You will face new tenants or guests, discuss various leasing rules, and handle complaints. A property manager also collects rental fees, facilitates building maintenance, and repairs, and pays municipal bills.
A property manager is among the leading hospitality alternative career options that provide flexibility and higher pay. If you have finances, start your real estate management business instead of seeking work.
7. Theme Park Manager
A hospitality student can work as a theme park manager. It is among the most appropriate alternative career options for hotel management students. This employee supervises all activities that take place in a theme park. Customer experience management is one of the skills required to excel in this role. As an administrator, you will create and implement strategies for improving customer relations.
Depending on where you find work, you might also lead the marketing department. Hence, becoming a theme park manager requires robust leadership and business management skills. Your undergraduate degree allows you to do strategic planning and development, marketing, HR, catering, operations, etc.
8. Dietary Services Manager
Alternative career options for hotel management students include dietary services manager. A person in this role has several responsibilities. They work closely with a professional nutritionist to make the best food and nutrition plans. As a dietary service manager, you can find work in schools, hospitals, restaurants, and other places.
Your work is to plan meals for cafeterias in organizations. Besides dealing with food planning, you can be responsible for administrative work in your company. For instance, you can participate in recruitment and selection and ensure that the company meets OSHA regulations.
9. Casino Supervisor
The gaming industry is one of the fastest-growing businesses. You can join this industry as a casino supervisor. Your hotel management degree certificate is good enough. You will help with planning, organizing, controlling, directing, and coordinating casino activities.
Not only will you supervise other casino workers and gaming operations on various tables. You might also handle casino guests’ housing and catering needs. This job has no direct connection with your hospitality training, but it works for those leaving the industry.
10. General Manager
The general manager role is one of the top alternative career options for hotel management students. A general manager role is flexible enough to let you join a different industry if you want to avoid the hospitality sector. For instance, you can become a general manager in the food industry.
You can employ yourself by starting a business or finding a job with your hotel management degree papers. If you are not a chef, you can employ other people or do some short courses in baking and other cookeries.
11. Tour agent
Alternative career options for hotel management students who want to stay within their industry may include tour agencies. You can become a tour agent in your company, work as a freelancer, or seek employment. A tour agent does not need to provide tour guiding services.
They can get a commission when they direct clients to a fully operating tour operations company. If you have some online marketing skills, you can open a website and promote various tour operators on it. That way, you can begin to make money without buying vehicles and other equipment for running a tour company.
12. Corporate Liaison
Corporate liaison is one of the alternative career options for hotel management students. As a corporate liaison, you will not limit yourself to employers within the hospitality and tourism industry. You can work for banks and other institutions as the main thing is having effective communication and collaboration skills. As a liaison manager, you will ensure synchronization between entities.
Whether these are public or private entities does not matter. You oversee ensuring your company and its partners relate well. A corporate liaison manager should have courtesy and excellent communication and negotiation skills. As the company’s spokesperson, a liaison manager must fulfill all deals according to its vision, mission, and values.
13. Teaching
Alternative career options for hotel management students entail working in administrative roles. However, some students can choose to become lecturers in colleges and universities. If you are a professional chef, you do not need to pursue a master’s degree to begin teaching. You can start a kitchen and invite people to learn from there.
As chef skills are practical, people can learn without the need to do an exam. Opening a YouTube channel is a way to earn from your culinary expertise while helping others become better cooks. Those who might want to become teachers in institutions can consider advancing their studies.
Making the final decision
Different careers in hospitality industry are exciting. Unless you did your hotel management degree out of pressure from family, your chances of thriving in this industry are high. If your passion is music, IT, medicine, or another field, you will be unhappy in hotel jobs.
A career change from hospitality management is the way forward. As the process can be time-consuming and costly, you need thorough preparation. Failure chances are higher without a logical shifting plan. In the planning phase, look for alternative career options for hotel management students that align with your passion.
Next, consider financial constraints as getting outside your industry might require taking a new course. Find mentors who already work in your dream field and seek their advice. Use your hotel management qualifications if you want to stay in the hotel industry but work a different job.
If you cannot handle the expense at once, stay a much longer in your current job to raise funds and test the waters. Consider doing one of your favorite alternative career options for hotel management students as a side hassle. It will give you exposure and elementary skills before joining the industry full-time.
FAQ
1. What Else I Can Do After Hotel Management?
Alternative career options for hotel management students are many. You should not limit yourself to management roles. If you know your passions and interests, you can fight for your space in the hospitality industry or any other.
Getting outside the industry is hard but doable. Other fields you can enter are aviation, banking and insurance, event management, marketing, education, cruise, entrepreneurship, etc..
2. What Industries Can I Break into with My Hospitality Experience?
Alternative job opportunities in hospitality industryare not the only ones you can find. You can join other industries to achieve your dreams. These industries are many, including casino management, food, and beverage management, front office management, photography, event planning, conference organizing, and entertainment and leisure.
If you are into cookery, you could become an executive chef, lecturer, hospital food and breakfast manager, country club manager, catering assistant, and so on. In property management, you can try the directors of housekeeping, hotel and lodge management, or guest relations jobs.
Marketing is a good field if you have people skills and are seeking alternative hospitality management positions. The best marketing job positions include destination marketing manager, corporate liaison, and retail marketing.
3. How Do You Transition Out of Hospitality?
Transitioning out of hospitality can seem easy, but it is not. You must examine your skills to spot the transferrable ones. Then, determine if your transferrable skills alone can help you land one of the top alternative career options for hotel management students.
If you need more advanced skills, your only choice is to resume to school. Can you pay school fees now? You must ask yourself this question. Another point to reflect on is the ease of finding an alternative job outside your industry. Without adequate networking, you might fail to get a job or take longer than you expect.
For this reason, you should make friends on social media and in the real world as these people can provide the information you require. Even if you want to start a small business, you should still network to gather information about the market you want to join.
Without adequate capital, you can struggle to start and run a business. Again, you need to stay in employment while you open a private business or get one of your favorite alternative career options for hotel management students as a side hassle.
4. What Are the Best Courses After Hotel Management?
The best course to do after finishing your hotel management degree depends on your goals. Do you want to find work in the hotel industry, or will you take a different route? The best course to do should go well with your passion and goals.
If you want managerial roles, you might want to do post-graduate courses in your field. If you want a different career, you might want to do an undergraduate degree or a diploma course.
Suppose you plan to stay in the hospitality industry but try a different career path than the one you chose in school. In this case, you can do short certificate courses to get basic skills.
5. Why Are People Leaving the Hospitality Industry?
People may consider alternative career options for hotel management students for personal reasons. Some students are pursuing a course that someone else chose for them. Others are stuck in the hotel management industry because it is the only job available.
The lack of passion in hospitality work is why people leave the industry a lot. Most of us realize the importance of choosing a job based on satisfaction rather than financial security. We now want to follow our talents by seeking alternative career options for hotel management students.
