My Surname is Hospitality (The 2nd Generation)

A predominant feature in families around the world foresee that in the advent of a marriage, the to-be wedded bride and groom should carry with them a skill set of household handling qualities. These qualities are imbibed, learnt, trained or reinforced by the senior generation to the next but this tradition seldom finds its way forward in magnitude. I am not here to blame the gap, but I stand by the progression in the society and lifestyles of the next gen and they are way ahead of times, I must say.

Having said that after spending a whopping 25 years in hospitality industry, I am delighted to see the next gen coming as a boon through the hospitality expertise of the parent generation by virtue of ignited passion to the core, taking hospitality education by choice and exploring the variant skill placement venues. A huge round of applauds to the hospitality industry to infuse this exploration.

We have to accept the fact that major share of the hospitality graduates is taking a paradigm shift to retail whether food or non-food retail as their primary career choice and the second major chunk is studious enough to pursue further degrees. So the net outcome of the hospitality graduates graduating as a main stand, do not suffice the demand of the hotel industry. We can endlessly debate on persistent hospitality issues on job – long hours, meagre pay package, sedimentary promotion etc. or the skill set or the level of passion in the yester years as to next gen chefs. A simple fact is that the Chefs cannot be replaced to dish out food in a professional arena. Here we see light at the end of the tunnel – the 2ndgeneration, who are not heirs, but passionate to groom themselves to live the hotels, restaurants, food businesses and grow ahead.

We witness various traits and trades where the business continues as a family tradition from generations. There are entrepreneurial start-ups in hospitality from people of non-hospitality related background for eg: MBA, IIM grads, ICT, Doctors, Builders, and Hobby-to-Career etc. While most of the parent generation wish to keep the next gen out of their exploited career choice, further to explore the umpteen career options available today; interestingly, the mighty children find their way to continue the professional legacy to the next level hoteliering. 

Cases don’t stop to enthral us. We have seen husbands joined by wives and vice versa, we also see father/mother chefs/ restaurateurs joined by their sons/ daughters, a mother–son duo taking home kitchen to the world, a grandfather to father to son expanding the restaurant biz, a mother-daughter baking for the glocal celebrations, just a part-time activity becoming a full-time entity. These will entail as many permutation combinations, only to create success stories to keep the hospitality industry live and kicking. I would like to thank one of my mentors, underlying this affinity to remind me, the 2nd generation is on the go.

While these 2nd generation hospitality warriors are already getting ready for tomorrow, we can provide a little help at our level, in our reach to substantiate the cause. My view is to increase the practical skill % by large in the hospitality education curriculum and reinforce with specialized syllabi abreast with today’s industry requirements and expectations.

Moral of the story is that the parents are also in the same race alongside where the hospitality schools continue to create the skill talent supply for the hospitality and allied industries. We support to equip even the fresher talent acquisition for even happier days for the hotel industry. Thank you to the versatile hotel, restaurant, and food biz etc. – an industry in itself to adopt and make us adept. 

Yours Skill-fully,

Dr. Salla Vijay Kumar.
Have you read?
Four Advanced Skills for Conflict Resolution and Motivating Others by Stephen McGarvey.
3 Strategies for Working Natural Language Processing Into Your Operations by Rhett Power.
Amazon’s new retail business model: customers win, competitors lose, and sellers pay to play by Robin Gaster Ph.D.
Why Your Diversity, Equity and Inclusion (DEI) Initiative Isn’t Moving the Needle – And Ways to Spur Movement by James T. McKim.
CEO Spotlight: Mark Hauser Details How Private Equity Transactions Work.
The Best Tech CEOs – Tough, without Acting Tough by Pete Devenyi.

Track Latest News Live on CEOWORLD magazine and get news updates from the United States and around the world.
The views expressed are those of the author and are not necessarily those of the CEOWORLD magazine.