Career in Hotel Management 

 Kashmir has been endowed with natural beauty by the Almighty God which is unique and thus makes people travel long distances to soothe their eyes by soaking its pristine beauty. Visitors from all over India and other foreign countries have regularly been visiting Kashmir thus making tourism the number one industry of the state and the virtual backbone of its economy. The importance of tourism is further enhanced by the lack of a robust industrial infrastructure in the state. In order to cater to the demands of tourism industry hotels have sprung up in every part of state. Each hotel that has come up needs trained manpower to run efficiently and give quality service to its customers. Hotel industry being service based creates a huge demand for manpower as per the functional requirement. The various functional areas of Hotel Management are defined briefly as below:-

1. Front Office:- A very important nodal point for making bookings, facilitating check in of guests, billing, communication and calling for various in-house services. 

 2. Restaurant
                        a. Production-A department mainly engaged in production of variety of food items to be served in the restaurant, the banquets, room service and catering services. 
                        b. Service- A department mainly engaged in serving food to guests in the restaurant, banquets halls, room service or even outside catering service. Service here includes billing and collection if not already included in the room bills of in-house guests. 

 3. Sales and Marketing-This can be an independent department or a part of the administration department or sometimes even the front office. Employees here are mainly engaged in soliciting business for the hotel.

 4. Accounts and Administration- This department functions as back office taking care of all administrative matters, accounts, debt collections, payment of statutory dues, personnel management as also the watch dog for all financial transactions taking place in the front office, restaurant or purchase department and also to facilitate payments to suppliers.

5. Housekeeping- This department takes care of the cleanliness of the rooms and other parts of the hotel premises, toilets, linen change and other such services required by the guests from time to time.

 6. Maintenance- This department is very vital as it takes care of the gadgets and machines working in the hotel like generators, geysers, air-conditioners, televisions, telephones, electric installations, plumbing, etc which are an essential part of the services provided by the hotel to its clients . 

 7. Security- Of course, last but not the least the department that keeps round the clock vigil to make sure that the hotel property, guests and employee are safe by taking care of the security needs with tight control over the movement of men and material into and out of the hotel premises. 

                With globalization hotel industry has boomed and so has the demand for qualified personnel needed in the industry. Currently there are around 2.4 million people working in Hotel Industry in India. The numbers are going to increase hugely in the coming years as a lot new hotels are coming up in all major cities and towns across India. Moreover, there is always the chance to take up jobs in foreign countries especially the middle east and south east Asian countries where tourism is booming.

 For a Bachelors degree in hotel management the requirement is 10+2 with 50% marks but for those with less than 50% marks they can always go for a Diploma in Hotel Management. Students looking for career in hotel industry must have strong communication skills, numerical ability, reasoning skills and a pleasing personality. Some institutes even help in placement of their students after completion of the course. Pay packages for Hotel Management graduates are quite decent depending on the reputation of Institute you graduate from and scope for promotion and changing jobs is virtually unlimited given the demand for trained Hotel Management graduates.

 Apart from the Institute of Hotel Management in Srinagar other institutes conducting Hotel Management Courses in India are :-
1. Dr.Ambedkar Institute of Hotel Management, Chandigarh 
2. Institute of Hotel Management, Kolkata 
3. Institute of Hotel Management, Lucknow 
4. Institute of Hotel Management, Bangalore 
5. Institute of Hotel Management, Bhopal 
6. Institute of Hotel Management, Chennai 
7. Institute of Hotel Management, New Delhi
8. Institute of Hotel Management, Goa 
9. Institute of Hotel Management, Catering & Applied Nutrition, Dehradun. 

 Given below are the names of the famous hotel chains in India and abroad which need trained manpower all the time and promise a fantastic career in Hospitality industry:-
 • Ambassador Group of Hotels
 • Oberoi Group of Hotels 
 • ITDC Group of Hotels
 • Jaypee Group of Hotels 
 • K Raheja Group of Hotels 
 • Le Meridien Group of Hotels
 • Taj Group of Hotels 
 • Welcome Heritage Group of Hotels.
 • Holiday Inn Group of Hotels 
 • ITC Group of Hotels
 • Hyatt group of Hotels
 • Sherwood group of Hotels 
 • Hilton group of Hotels
 • Intercontinental group of Hotels.

                 Considering the fact that all the youth can not become doctors or engineers and keeping in view the scenario in our state, Hotel Management stands out as an attractive career option with job prospects in every part of the world.

 Ajaz M Ahanger

 ajaz707@gmail.com