Escaping the tyranny of relevance: Some reflections on hospitality management education

Abstract

Higher education provision to meet the needs of management within the hospitality industry is now well established in most English speaking countries. In the UK the first degree programmes appeared in the late 1960s and burgeoned alongside the general expansion of higher education in the 1990s. This paper draws on recent reports on higher education for the hospitality industry, and on recent academic research into the nature of hospitality to suggest that higher education programmes would better serve both students and industry if they reflected more social science underpinnings. Paradoxically, an overly managerial focus in content is not always consistent with the needs of manager education. Various studies suggest that reflective practitioners are needed for a turbulent and changing hospitality industry. The development of analytical and critical thinking skills are essential for managers who are increasingly being asked to 'think outside the box'. This paper argues that these skills are best developed in a framework of critical education which is as concerned with the study of hospitality management as it is with the study for hospitality management.

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