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Unit 2 Exploring Careers in Family and Consumer Sciences
management. During my college years, I also
worked in a restaurant and had an internship with
a catering company. After college, I worked in
management for a national hotel chain. Between
my college coursework, internship, and work
experience, I gained a lot of knowledge about the
hospitality industry.
It has been two years since I began my bed-
and-breakfast venture, and the steep learning
curve has started to level out. Word-of-mouth
advertising, my networking with local business
owners, plus a user-friendly website have given
me one less thing to worry about. Most of my
guests now come to me rather than me going out
and drumming up business.
I am in charge of and responsible for every
aspect of my business. If I take vacation time, I
have to either close my business or leave it in the
hands of someone I trust completely to maintain
my high standards while maintaining a genuine
interest in my guests and their welfare. Is this a
lifetime career? I think so. For me, it is a perfect
fit between my family life, my personal passions,
skills, interests, and my love for people.
The beaches of Rio, the buildings of New
York, the museums of London, the shops of
Taipei, or the opera house of Sydney—the urge
to see new and different places lures thousands
of people to explore the world each year. Hotels,
airlines, trains, cruise ships, food service estab-
lishments, retailers, tourist attractions, and
cultural events all play a part in encouraging
people to explore the world. For ease and effi-
ciency, the travel and tourism, lodging, food
service, recreation, and event and meeting man-
agement industries are often referred to simply
as the hospitality industry, one of the largest
industries in the world.
Novelist and poet Robert Louis Stevenson
(1879) once said, “We are all travelers in the wil-
derness of this world, and the best we can find
in our travels is an honest friend.” The hospital-
ity industry deals with complex issues that focus
on providing a temporary “friend” for individu-
als and families. It involves much more than
offering a decorated room, clean bed linens, and
bath towels, or even serving a good meal. The
hospitality industry serves to meet food, shelter,
recreational, and other needs of people who are
traveling. In a sense, hospitality vendors create a
home away from home for travelers, even if it is
only for an hour or two.
The Hospitality Field
Hospitality. The word itself conjures up
images of comfort, friendliness, and feeling
welcome. The hospitality industry is multifac-
eted and includes several major segments: food
service, lodging, travel and tourism, recreation,
and event and meeting management.
People have many different needs, interests,
and preferences; and the hospitality industry
attempts to provide products and services that
honor diverse customer requests. Recently, a
number of issues have emerged in the hospi-
tality industry. The issues are complex and
although the hospitality market continues to
grow, it has been profoundly altered in the last
decade by these changes. For example, travel
agents or personal contacts used to be the norm
for booking reservations. Today, many hospital-
ity reservations are made using the Internet. As
a result, a large number of industry careers were
eliminated while new career paths flourished.
In addition, many current concerns have grown
out of lifestyle changes, globalization, and safety
and security issues. Lifestyle changes, particu-
larly those brought on by an aging population,
have made a major impact on the hospitality
industry as a whole.
Career Opportunities in
Hospitality
Career opportunities in hospitality range
from owning a restaurant or convention plan-
ning to catering or running a bed-and-break-
fast. The hospitality industry offers careers with
theme parks, cruise lines, restaurants, hotels,
and resorts, just to name a few. The hospitality
industry falls under the broad umbrella of fam-
ily and consumer sciences because the industry