Your ticket to hospitality industry

Vikas Dahiya

If you want to pursue a career in Hospitality/ Hotel Management, you must have traits like empathy, good communication skills (specially listening skills), motivating skills, friendliness and confidence. The sector deals with the overall working of a hotel, resort, club, cruise or any other hospitality firm. This includes managing the staff (workers at various levels-- cleaners, cooks, bartenders, receptionists etc), managing the stock (edible items, clothes etc), customer service (utmost important in the hospitality industry), finance management, marketing, PR and event management.

In view of these requirements, the hotel management courses generally include the following areas of training -

• Management skills
• Personality development
• Communication skills
• Finance and accounting
• Human resource management
• Marketing and PR management
• Travel management
• Event management
• Entrepreneurship development
• Food production
• House keeping
• Nutrition and food science
• Front end operations

NCHMCT

The National Council for Hotel Management and Catering Technology (Society) was set up in 1982 by the Government of India as an autonomous body for coordinated growth and development of hospitality management education in the country. The council regulates academics in the field of hospitality education and training imparted at 21 Central Government-sponsored institutes of hotel management, 25 state government-sponsored institutes offering degree/ diploma/ craft certificate level programmes, one PSU owned institute, 25 private institutes and 14 food craft institutes that function in different parts of the country.

Eligibility criteria

Educational qualifications: Candidate must have passed Class X and XII exams or its equivalent with English as mandatory subject. Candidates appearing in Class XII exams are also eligible.

Age Limit: Upper age limit is 25 years (Gen/OBC) and 28 years for reserved categories as on July 1, 2020.

Medical: Candidate should get a physical fitness certificate from a recognised medical practitioner.

Some good hotel management institutes

1. Institute of Hotel Management, Catering and Nutrition (IHM), Pusa

2. Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) - Mumbai

3. Oberoi Centre of Learning and Development - Delhi

4. Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration (WGSHA)

5. Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) - Aurangabad

6. Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) - Bangalore

7. Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) - Chennai

8. Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) - Kolkata

9. Institute of Hotel Management (IHM) - Ahemdabad

10. Department of Hotel Management - Christ University - Bangalore

11. Institute of Hotel Management - Hyderabad

Preparation Tips

• The first step towards your NCHMCT JEE preparation should be to understand the exam pattern and syllabus. This would help you know various nuances of the examination and its various aspects.
• While preparing for the examination, you cannot overlook the importance of the previous year's papers. Inculcate a habit of attempting these along with their analysis. Evaluation of your result will help you figure out which areas you are strong at and the areas you need to focus on.
• You should get familiar with the latest cut-off marks, which will help you get an idea about a safe score for sailing through the written examination.

— The writer is Career Counselor and Mentor at GradeUp