In a recent event, the Hospitality HR Summit - Session II focused on addressing the critical issues of low enrollment in hospitality management programs and high attrition rates in the industry Ashima Gulati, Senior Learning & Development Manager at ITC Hotels in a recent conference on Hospitality HR Issue of low enrolment and high attrition in hospitality industry.

The first important factor is about who are the students who are joining us? The important factors include the three C's of which the first C is Communication. Communication is one of the important factors that is lacking and I am talking from my personal experience since I now have a daughter who is in class 11th and she is going to decide what career to opt for and the only reason she knows about the hospitality industry and none of her friends know about it is because of me since I am a hotelier and she has had exposure to the hotel industry.

Therefore, we do need to think that if the students do not know that Hospitality exists as a career and I am not talking about hotels alone. If they are not aware of what they can do and how they can make careers out of it then how will they opt for it? Therefore, what are we doing and are we doing enough to reach out to the students across the country at a much higher level to let them know and every time I have also tried to reach out to schools as an L&T manager in the past to talk about Hospitality, they do not want us to come.

Therefore, I think this is one great opportunity for all of us to understand that the students are the ones who will reach out to us after class 12. Therefore, do they know enough about the hospitality industry? And secondly they are so disillusioned about what the hospitality industry is about?

Therefore, it is essential to educate students about the inner workings of the hotel industry and help them understand its dynamics. By doing so, we can enable them to appreciate the value of their roles and cultivate a genuine passion for what they do. This forms the foundation of effective communication with aspiring professionals entering the hotel industry.

The next part is that students who are pursuing hotel management course decide not to join us and that is equally a big challenge as well because the myth is that everyone is going to become a general manager as soon as they join or at least a management trainee. However, what the industry offers is far more. We talked about 67 different job positions for which students can be trained but what they are looking at right now is only four.

I either become an executive chef or an F&B manager and no one wants to start from the entry level. Why? The fitment or the understanding of the right kind of personality traits and person and how do they fit into the role is very important and the students do not understand that.

The last point I would like to mention here are most of us here having a lot of hospitality experience. I have been working as well for more than 20 years but I get up every single day and I love what I do. But when I started off many years ago as a management trainee - I felt in the first couple of days as an industrial trainee and a management trainee and I did not understand what was happening.

This was because my curriculum did not give me that exposure to understand that skills are more important, firstly, than the knowledge that I have acquired. So how is it that I understand the environment?

However, more important is tenacity and passion. You have to be very passionate about hoteliering and you have to be emotionally intelligent and be able to deal with the environment. Therefore, when the students come in after all the learning that they have had and a very limited exposure of the hospitality internship which has also been reduced to only 4 months, they are disillusioned by the time they understand the department they move to the next department. Most of them have already chosen to become chefs and do not want to spend time in front office, housekeeping and F&B.

The third "C" is curriculum. It is crucial for the curriculum to be structured in a way that provides students with ample exposure to real-world experiences. For instance, whenever we have approached colleges for support in enabling students to gain hands-on experience in hotels, the rigidity of the curriculum often prevents them from participating effectively.

Lastly, we are looking at gig Workforce. The reason why we are looking at Workforce for the hotels is because being a gig worker will help students to gain more exposure in the industry in 3 or 4 years of their curriculum and they are available to be there.

Lastly, we are focusing on the gig workforce. Encouraging students to take up gig opportunities in the hotel industry can provide them with valuable hands-on experience over the course of their three to four years of study. This approach not only enhances their industry exposure but also ensures they are better prepared and available to contribute effectively upon graduation.