With hospitality opening up all over the world, the hotel industry’s recovery and employment opportunities are accelerating. Anyone considering a career in hotel management will inevitably be aware of roles in head office, as general manager or in individual departments such as marketing or finance. However, there is also a whole world out there in terms of jobs which many young people starting out in education may not have considered because they are not as visible.
These roles, mainly on the consultancy side, include international hotel development and asset management, real estate investment, and investment strategies and financing. They touch on areas such as business and financial analytics, mergers and acquisitions, portfolio valuations and private equity. In my experience as program director of the MSc in Real Estate, Finance and Hotel Development at Glion Institute of Higher Education, based in London, once students know about these different opportunities it is a real eye-opener for them.
Entering the world of hotel consultancy can be tricky, but with support from a world-leading hospitality school such as Glion and with the right skillset and personality, there really are some fantastic career pathways for students right from the point of graduation. It is these pathways that we emphasise through the MSc. At Glion, our recent alumni have gone into positions at Altus Group (analyst), CBRE Global Investment Partners (investment analyst), Xenium Advisors (associate finance advisory) and Zoku Hotels (finance administrator).
Xenium’s Vasilis Papadis, who did an internship at E&Y Strategy & Transactions, recently told me: “What I liked the most about the program was the integration of Excel in the assignments, which has proved very beneficial in my work, as I often come across modelling problems and tasks in the context of hotel valuation as part of my role. The implementation of theory through Excel surely is one of the unique selling points of the Master’s and made my transition to the real world easier”. Our internships, in fact, really are a productive route to gaining employment in a variety of sectors, including consultancy roles.
Having worked for 16 years as VP International Hotel Development Planning at Marriot International, and previously as an associate at HVS in London and with a short-term stint in Singapore, I can only testify to the importance of these consultancy roles which will support the post-Covid economic recovery for hospitality. Through my time in industry I have seen so many real life examples of how these roles add enormous value to the sector. That is why I spend a lot of my time advising all our MSc students on career opportunities, as well as being a personal tutor specifically to real estate students. Jobs are out there, and consultancies will always scan the market and pick up talent.
More awareness is needed of these opportunities – but if you want to experience something different, a different working environment and to be challenged in a different way, this can be for you. For prospective students considering our program, there is no other specialist hospitality degree with these key elements of the investment and asset management world, and it is exclusive to Glion’s London campus. They will acquire the tools to make real estate investment decisions, build a certified real estate analyst skillset as well as receive a STR Analytics Certificate, a HVS Hotel Valuation Certificate, an Argus Software Development Certificate and a Bloomberg Market Concepts Certificate.
We provide students with access to industry experts – not traditional Professors or lecturers – and a genuine connection with the real world which opens the doors to the world of real estate finance and hotel development. Now, with hospitality opening up and bouncing back, indicators such as the share price of Marriott International rocketing in recent weeks suggest there is growing positivity. In fact, in the first half of 2021 alone, the stocks of the major hotel groups have all recovered and outgrown the indexes and organisations are investing massively in new offerings. This is therefore the perfect time to be considering a career in hotel development, investment and asset management.
Nicole Philips is Director of the MSc in Real Estate, Finance and Hotel Development at Glion Institute of Higher Education