If you have always loved to be polite to others, if you love to make sure that those around you are comfortable at all costs, if you derive pleasure out of serving and hosting others, a career in hospitality suits you the best. You can actually make a living out of your love of meeting people, making them comfortable and entertaining them. It is not your regular nine-to-five job and throws up such exciting and challenging opportunities on each day of the job. In a hospitality job, roles are defined but to ensure that you are able to please people with different tastes and preferences is no mean task. It requires a lot of soft skills, patience and a real desire to serve others. In this way, the job can become taxing but if you have real passion for this industry, it is also a lot of fun.

Especially in India these days, the hospitality industry is growing fast. It is the sunrise sector of the economy wit the Commonwealth Games around the corner. With many new hotels coming up and planned in the pipeline, there would be many job opportunities in the hospitality industry in near future. So those pursuing courses in hospitality can look for a plethora of job opportunities in the near future. Even in the time of recession, hospitality has managed to survive till now and hospitality jobs are still available. In fact, there is a shortage of trained professionals in this field.

The hospitality sector does not just mean hotels. There is a wide scope and the industry includes many other avenues such as resorts, restaurants, all types of eating joints, guest houses, lodges, clubs and casinos, spas etc. All these fields require certain particular soft skills apart from the professional training in hospitality or hotel management. The guest or the consumer is supreme and all care is taken to ensure that he/she is at ease and so enjoys that comes back for the same services. Since it is primarily a service industry, the focus on people skills is major. It is not mechanical work and requires a lot of human involvement and personal touch to make it successful.

With the exponential rise of the Indian middle class in the last two decades and the globalization, the disposable income of Indians has also increased. They have more money to spend and this has led to the rise of the hospitality sector in India. People are ready to splurge and the hospitality industry is cashing on this new reality. New players have set foot and the existent ones have expanded leading to the creation of many jobs in hospitality industry. And there are jobs for various roles. One can choose a role according to one’s interest and caliber and hone skills in that department to be successful. The various branches under hospitality include Housekeeping, Bakery, Kitchen Stewarding and Cookery.

Housekeeping, as it may wrongly sound, is not a menial job. It requires proper training and skills to get it right and professionals in Housekeeping can grow a lot. To enter this field, one needs a degree or diploma and fluency in English. The main job profile of house keepers is to take care of housekeeping, horticulture, laundry, interiors and even guest relations. Apart from big hotels or lodges, housekeeping can be pursued as a private business too and there are housekeeping companies that offer jobs to people specialized in this field. These companies offer both part-time and full-time opportunities.

Another branch is cookery. This is a very important department in hospitality. In fact at restaurants and eating joints, the skills of the chef can make or break the success chances of the place. While a good chef can enrich and raise the bar of even a small place, a bad chef can completely ruin the reputation of even a well-established place. Cookery jobs in hospitality are very different from everyday cooking. For being a successful cook, one needs to be creative, consistent, knowledgeable and willing to learn through trial and error. It can be a very well-paying job depending on the skills and the prowess of a chef. And it is not just restaurants, where chefs can look to find jobs. They can even get hired in sectors like in-flight catering, hospital catering, food styling, cruise liners. So, the scope is quite wide.

Bakery and cookery are not same and bakery requires different skill sets. Even within baking, there are separate fields such as bread-baking, pastry baking, cookie baking, demonstrating, etc that one could specialize in. In kitchen stewarding, one is required to maintain the kitchens of an eatery or hotel. This job has moved from being a chef’s responsibility to a separate branch. A kitchen steward would be responsible for cleaning and organising dishes, taking stock of inventory, maintaining hygiene and quality in the kitchen, keeping a tab on breakage and replacements.

Thus, there are various jobs in hospitality that one can take and flourish in. With some innate talent, liking for the job and proper training, there are many job opportunities up for grabs in the coming years in the hospitality sector.

Few useful links:

http://www.naukri.com/

http://jobsearch.naukri.com/hospitality-travel/