Minor Hotels Group seeks to redress shortage in hospitality sector talent through AIHM

The BBA in Global Hospitality Management programme on offer at AIHM comes at a time when the industry is experiencing a severe workforce shortage crisis.

Chris Meylan, chief operating officer of Minor Education, a subsidiary of Minor Hotels Group that established and is running AIHM, said that hotel operators worldwide face two challenges in terms of human resources.

One is to attract young people into the industry and the other is to retain them and encourage them to grow within the industry, he explained.

Minor Hotels, one of the world's leading hotel owners, operators, and investors, is striving to overcome these challenges and the current shortage by educating young talents, particularly in Thailand and the Asia region, to pursue a career in the hospitality industry.

 

"We believe in education. We strongly believe in growing people by giving them skills and competencies to be successful in their careers and also to be able to grow," he said.

 

The group founded the Asian Institute of Hospitality Management (AIHM) in 2021 in academic association with Les Roches, Switzerland's top hospitality school. 

"At AIHM, we try to get young people who are interested in the hospitality industry and give them a full international quality education along with the potential to be able to work in the industry and hopefully give them opportunities to progress," he said.

Meylan highlighted the distinct advantages of studying at AIHM, the main one being that the institution is able to offer a degree curriculum and related certificate programmes in academic association with Les Roches. This means that Les Roches officials visit every year to inspect the quality of the AIHM degree.

“Les Roches want to make sure that we follow the same standards as they do in Switzerland. That in itself is a guarantee of the high-level quality education we offer," he said.

Equally important is that AIHM is directly integrated into a hotel. This allows students to do their assigned practical tasks in a real hospitality work environment.

" AIHM’s students will actually serve real guests. They will be supervised by real hotel practitioners, and they will be able to put that directly into practice,” he said.

Meanwhile, being part of such a large group as Minor will help them reach people from general managers, human resources, public relations managers, and corporate offices who can share their experiences with students.

Meylan also emphasised that the course is not just about theory, but also about what actually happens at work.

The third advantage is AIHM's distinct pedagogy, which encourages students to be proactive and self-learners.

He explained that in each AIHM class, teachers are not permitted to speak for more than 15-20 minutes at a time. The goal is for students to learn through various activities such as brainstorming, case studies, group projects, and design thinking rather than having teachers speak nonstop for two hours.

“We make sure that the learning is deep rather than just surface-level,” he said, emphasising the importance of students putting what they've learned into practice.

This is achieved by providing students with the opportunity to participate in real-world business projects.

"We offer an Integrated Business Projects course. These are actual management projects given to us by the hotels and our students must come up with a solution for that specific hotel," he explained. "For example, a hotel manager may arrive and announce that the hotel wishes to review the menu at the lobby bar. The students will have 15 weeks to work on finding a solution."

At the end of the 15-week period, each student team will make a presentation to the hotel's general manager and receive feedback on how to improve.

“This is what we've been aiming for throughout the studies. There are theories, of course, but there is also integration with industry and an attempt to work on projects that are real,” he said.

Another advantage is within Minor, he said, adding that students who graduate from AIHM will have a preferred employment status with many opportunities.

"Minor is now looking to expand. We currently have 530 hotels worldwide and hope to expand to 600 hotels by 2025. As a result, we require a lot of talented individuals to work in the industry," he said. 

Minor Hotels Group is continuing to support communities through educational and career enhancement with full-tuition scholarships to AIHM for talented young Thais interested in pursuing a career in hospitality. Scholarship recipients must work for three years at Minor Hotels.

Except for scholarship students, he insisted that graduated students will have complete freedom to choose which companies and industries they want to work for.

In addition to the three-and-a-half-year course for a bachelor's degree in Business Administration in Global Hospitality Management, AIHM also offers for hotel managers and executives who want to upskill and sharpen their competencies in order to stay at the top of their field –an 18-month programme for International Hotel Administration certification.

"We had our first graduation for students with a certificate last March. Out of these eight people who graduated, 2 people actually got promoted within two months of receiving the certificate," Meylan pointed out.

Furthermore, in addition to the 18-month certificate programme, AIHM provides two-day executive education courses that will help managers and executives in the hospitality industry advance their careers by covering topics such as interpersonal communication, revenue management, leadership, presentation skills, self-management, critical and creative thinking, teamwork and collaboration, public speaking, personal branding, digital marketing, and supervisor development.

Currently, AIHM can accommodate 80 students per semester but has plans for growth. Sixty percent of the students are Thai, with the remaining 40% coming from Laos, Myanmar, Cambodia, and Russia, as well as young foreigners living in Thailand.

The first AIHM bachelor's degree student will graduate in August 2024.

“AIHM students are extremely skilled and know exactly what they need to do. They are prepared to work as professionals." 

It will showcase AIHM's commitment to providing top-quality education and practical training, preparing students for rewarding careers in the hospitality industry. As the pioneer graduate, this student's achievement will validate AIHM's approach in grooming young talents and meeting the demands of the global hospitality sector.