The perception of pursuing a lifelong career in the hotel industry is facing fundamental changes.
How younger people join the hospitality business and how long they stick around has never been more varied, said Chris Mumford, managing director, Cervus Leadership Consulting. Mumford was a recent guest on “The Upgrade: EMEA Hospitality News,” CoStar News Hotels' podcast focusing on Europe, the Middle East and Africa.
“The world of work is changing. … In my parents’ generation, and to some degree my generation, where you come out of university, you start a career, and that’s what you do for the next 30 years,” Mumford said. “I think this new generation could well do two, three different careers in their lifetime.”
He said that while his area of expertise is the hotel veteran with 15 to 30 years of experience, he likes always to ask a question as to how these executives entered the hotel industry.
There are a couple of answers to that, Mumford said, the first being they had a weekend or summer job in the industry, perhaps working at a bar, and really enjoyed it, and the second being that the interviewee enjoyed traveling with their families when they were young and saw that it might be a worthwhile endeavor.
He said those answers are universal.
The hotel industry remains one that likes to take raw, empathetic talent and then teach them to become a hotelier.
In the United Kingdom — and no doubt elsewhere — cost pressures are enormous for the hotel industry, which affects hiring.
“Over the last five years … a housekeeping attendant’s pay has gone up by about 70%,” he said as one example.
He added most people are now unwilling to relocate, which was always the modus operandi for a meaningful career in the hotel industry.
However, very little is going on at the very top of the hotel industry's C-suite — the CEO level.
“The tenure of the CEO has extended, it is now up to 12 years,” Mumford added.
He said one reason for this is that CEOs now increasingly are coming to hotel companies from other sectors, “particularly in the luxury environment. I am talking of Mandarin Oriental, Peninsula, Grupe Barrière, the French group, they are taking CEOs from the outside.”
He added that trend is most notable in the private sector, and the desire is for C-suite leaders with knowledge of luxury retail, which Mumford added is “pretty far ahead.”
For more from Cervus Leadership Consulting's Chris Mumford on labor, hiring, changes in the hotel industry's C-suite and AI, please listen to the podcast embedded above.