The contemporary hospitality education challenges: The educators' perspective

Abstract

This article is unapologetically reflective. As hospitality educators, we find ourselves caught in the crossfire between institutional demands, industry pressures, and the everyday realities of teaching students who arrive with their own dreams, frustrations, and quirks. Drawing from joint experiences in over eight universities we reflect on our shared journey, we grapple with four stubborn challenges: the suffocating rise of managerialism in business schools, the relentless inflation of faculty workloads, the awkward tug-of-war between academic theory and industry relevance, and the rather unhelpful persistence of academic snobbery; all complicated by students whose expectations evolve faster than our committees can draft new module descriptors and their attention span is shorter than a Tik-Tok reel. These are not abstract irritations; they are the things that creep into staff meetings, weigh on our teaching practice, and spark both frustration and humour in our classrooms. Yet, despite the challenges, we remain hopeful. In some very few ‘fortresses’ across the UK and the rest of the world, we have seen examples of curricula that are unapologetically industry-connected, inclusive, and experiential. We have seen some hospitality departments supported and protected. These pockets remind us that hospitality education can be both rigorous and real, respecting scholarship while embracing the messy, people-driven world that hospitality represents. Our call, therefore, is not for the impossible, but for more of the possible: a more balanced model of hospitality education that values vocational relevance as much as academic prestige, and in doing so, better prepares us our students and the sectors we serve for the future.