Hospitality Education and the Technological Revolution

Abstract

New advances in technology pervade nearly every aspect of our society, and hospitality is certainly no exception. Hospitality graduates entering the field find themselves surrounded by computerized point of sale, bar management, hotel reservation and front office, energy management, menu scoring, and accounting and inventory systems, along with such computer-controlled cooking equipment as friers and microvraves.

Unfortunately, many of these hospitality graduates lack a basic understanding of how this technology will affect their professional roles or the overall direction of the industry. Thus, it is critical that hospitality education programs place more emphasis on providing their students with this understanding. To be able to do this efficiently and effectively, however, we need to understand the reasons why difficulties presently exist and how they may ultimately be resolved.