Welcoming Strangers 24/7: Hotel Industry Offers Stable Employment

by Rachel Kaufman
Published in Washington Post Express
2009-05-11

“PEOPLE ALWAYS TRAVEL,” says Larry Yu, professor of hospitality management at George Washington University. “Travel is such a part of American culture.”

Yu and his colleagues in hospitality training programs across the country are noticing the same thing: Stocks are tanking, factories are shuttering, businesses are imploding — yet the hotel industry soldiers on.

This is true both on paper (the industry grows about 3 percent annually, notwithstanding minor bumps) and in practice: For those working at a hotel, the world literally never sleeps.

“Operating in that environment is very different from an organization that can shut down on weekends. Try a hotel shutdown for a couple of months and see what happens,” says professor A. Kobina Armoo, who teaches in Strayer University’s hospitality management program. Even when hotels are renovating, they remain open because, he says, starting up again is so difficult. So, though it may make sense to close when rooms are sitting empty, the lights stay on. And for the people who run the hotels of the world, therein lies the challenge and the excitement.

Read the rest at ExpressNightOut.com

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