In an exclusive interview with Higher Education Review,  Ashok Kumar Prasad, Principal in Charge, IHM Kolkata shares his valuable insights on the Indian hotel management education landscape, the increasing importance of inculcating soft skills in students, the rising significance of technology exposure in hotel management education and more.     

With over 900 colleges, Indian youth has a plethora of hotel management institutes to choose from. According to you, what are the most essential facets a student should consider before choosing a hotel management institute?   

In this era where every second day there is a new hotel management institute popping up in every nook and corner of the country, the students should be very cautious about the institute they are choosing as this can make or break the future of an aspiring professional. The few most important facets that a student should look out for before enrolling for any institute are firstly their previous placement records, their past academic performances, the accreditation and affiliation of the institute, the infrastructure to be able to fulfil the deliverables as promised and last but not the least the word of mouth of the said institute.    

Rampant layoffs coupled with increasing workload have adversely impacted the job appeal of hotel management jobs in India. How has this affected hotel management institutions and their enrolment numbers?

It is true that despite being an ever dynamic and ever growing industry it does have its fair share of unique workforce challenges. Especially after pandemic hit, the global hospitality industry has seen certain setbacks in terms of layoffs and as a result increasing workload for the existing workforce without much increase in their pay packages. But we as a premiere hospitality institute not only focus on grooming students to be hotel centric but on the overall hospitality sector. We teach them operations as a part of their curriculum but also parallely we focus on their management and entrepreneurial skills through various day to day activities and assignments, workshops and seminars and try to make them an overall professional ready to build their career in the various facets of the hospitality sector- be it retails, locomotive sector, information technology, hospitals or be it someone trying to build up their own start-up business.  

Versatility and adaptability are key virtues to succeed in hotel management industry. How can hotel management institutes nurture these skills in students through training programs?

It is undoubtedly irrefutable that versatility and adaptability are the most important features that any hotel management students should either possess or acquire in due course of the curriculum. Our institute focuses on making the students versatile and adaptable by putting them through various team building and personality development training programs. Unless they are taught to face challenges on a day to day basis from the very beginning of their professional life they will not be able to cope up with such a dynamic environment.  

Employability is a key concern for many hotel management graduates in India. In light of this, how do you view the importance of government initiatives like Hunar Se Rozgar (HSRT) in equipping the students with employable skills?

These initiatives are of great help to a lot of people who are not being able to pursue proper degree or diploma courses due to certain socio-economic constraints. These courses give them a basic insight about the hospitality industry and equip them with basic skills which is sufficient enough to fetch them employment at the entry level thus securing their future.

Interpersonal skills play an integral role when it comes to determining the success of a professional in the hotel management industry. In your opinion, how can hotel management institutes imbibe interpersonal skills in their students? Also, what are the methods followed by IHM Kolkata in ensuring the same?

From the start of their course, students of the institute are imparted business communication skills and that is the foundation to having good interpersonal skills. They are given a free will to interact with their faculties as well as seniors which acts as the first step to building interpersonal skills. Students are also taught hands on guest handling by serving the dignitaries and industry experts who visit the institute which also helps them by-and- large to strengthen their interpersonal skills. If I have to state an example from my institute, during lunch service in the restaurant the final year students act as restaurant managers, whereas the 2^nd year students act as restaurant captains and 1^st year students as stewards and the entire lunch service of the faculties and staff is run by them. Hence communication among all the 3 batches becomes crucial here to run the operations. And that is, in my opinion, one good way to strengthen interpersonal skills.

Technology adoption in the hospitality industry is rapidly growing. Owing to this, technological competencies, digital skills, and analytics are becoming critical differentiators in the industry. Considering this, what curriculum and pedagogical changes should hotel management institutes make to keep pace with changing industry and technology trends?

I think the first pedagogical change that a hotel management faculty needs immediately is to stop the chalk and talk culture. They need to change their mindset of just being teachers and take a step forward to being facilitators rather as because we deal with young adults. Faculties need to engage the students more by audio visual stimulations and bring out the information from the students through questioning techniques rather than simply delivering lectures. And not to forget activities are a must as part of class work. The more engaged the class, the better the learning will be.