The hospitality industry is shaping the Human Resources strategies of the business world at large by demonstrating the inherent value of international internships when recruiting qualified professionals.
Faced with an increasingly globalized economic climate, the business world is taking note of the Hospitality Industry’s tradition of hiring young professionals who not only possess qualified degrees, but who also enter the workforce with real international experience in their respective fields.
The Hospitality Industry, which includes not only hotels but also travel, tourism, and a host of other service-oriented sectors, has long been at the forefront of globalization thanks to its ability to interconnect the world. By its very nature, Hospitality is an industry that defines globalization by crossing cultural boundaries and connecting people of all walks of life.
To be successful in such a dynamic industry, hotels and other hospitality businesses rely heavily on qualified personnel who have experience dealing with different cultures, possess strong language and communication skills, and most essentially – practical skills obtained through intensive internships in hotels around the world. Since its very inception, Les Roches Marbella’s educational mission has placed utmost importance on developing these specific skills sets.
At les Roches Marbella, International internships have always served as the basis for putting knowledge gained in the classroom to work in the real-world. This notion is further reinforced by our emphasis on combining core academic subjects with practical training in the school’s craft-based learning facilities. Studying in a simulated real-world hotel operation provides a distinct advantage for our students in that the world’s leading hotels actively seek them out, knowing that they will begin their internship periods with work experience that goes beyond the average entry-level trainee.
The Hospitality Industry has long known that securing future talent means ensuring they are trained on the international stage. By seeking out experienced multi-cultured professionals, successful hotels minimize their costs and the potential losses that come with the extended time periods needed to adequately train future managers.
In the business world, recruiting professionals with an international outlook is one of the most difficult yet advantageous attributes to find in people. This, of course, is not a trait that hotel management professionals acquire from academic coursework but instead, it slowly develops with time, networking, and continued interaction with people from around the world.
Today, smart businesses who wish to be innovative and be at the forefront of their globally evolving industries, are taking note of the model used for many years by leading hotel management schools.
In a report published earlier this year by the ICEF Monitor, they found that international internships for the business world are taking hold:
“Corporations hiring practices are changing. The benefits of internships are well documented – they provide practical experience, a sample of life in a chosen field, networking opportunities, workplace confidence, and practice using specialist skills and vocabulary amongst real world customers and colleagues. All these benefits go double for international students.
But perhaps most important for internationals, internships provide a chance to get into internal hiring queues, a crucial advantage, since instead of the default approach of recruiting from the outside, companies are refocusing on hiring from within their own ranks.”
With this in mind, it comes as little surprise that students of Les Roches Marbella boast an 86% placement rate upon graduation and are often times in demand for managerial positions even outside the field of hotel management. Now, more than ever, the saying “experience counts” rings true. We are dedicated to instilling this fundamental trait in our students and we will continue to provide them with this utmost professional advantage as they move forward in their careers.
