The Importance of Integrating Project Management into Hospitality Management Curriculum

The world has changed drastically since the International Council on Hotel, Restaurant, and Institutional Education (ICHRIE) was founded in 1946. In the tumultuous period following the end of World War II, Howard Bagnall Meek, who is widely regarded as the “father of hospitality education,” recognized the need to provide specialized higher education and training for hotels and restaurants with collaboration from other noted trailblazers of the hospitality industry like Joe Adams, John Pope, Louis Moore, Paul Muellet, Charles Rovetta, and Hilda Watson to name a few. Together with the American Hotel Association and the National Restaurant Association, they developed the framework for what would later grow into the global leader of hospitality and tourism education, industry engagement, and talent development, the ICHRIE (Bosselman, n.d).

During the 1950s, the hospitality industry experienced unprecedented growth in hotels, restaurants, and casinos. Concurrently, the automobile and other forms of travel proliferated (The University of Vermont, n.d.) along with the Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956, which beget an interstate construction program that was a catalyst to the expansion of the lodging industry (Rushmore & Baum, 2002). The world had been through remarkable change since ICHRIE’s beginnings in 1946, so it has been imperative that hospitality educators incorporate new curriculum and teaching strategies to keep pace with this dynamic industry.

Much like the paradigm shifts that have occurred within other disciplines in higher education, hospitality educators must keep abreast of industry developments and trends and offer curriculum to meet our industry’s needs. Most of the current hospitality programs have implemented a multidisciplinary approach in preparing students for the workforce. However, one discipline has been inconspicuously missing from the majority of hospitality management programs: project management.

Studying operations management is integral within any hospitality management curriculum but acquiring knowledge in the area of project management is of equal importance. Before discussing why project management is such an essential discipline for hospitality management students to study, it is important to distinguish between operations management and project management. According to the Project Management Institute®, operations management is “the ongoing, routine activities involved in the organization’s primary business” (and are considered to be normal business functions. However, project management is defined as “a temporary endeavor undertaken to create a unique product, service, or result” (Project Management Institute, n.d., para. 1). To further clarify, projects are defined in terms of time, scope, and cost, whereas operations are ongoing and are responsible for earning the business’s revenues.

According to recent research, there is a substantial gap between the demand for the hospitality industry’s project management skillset and the standard curriculum within most hospitality management programs. Although hospitality industry managers perform projects on a daily basis and are “project managers” without the title, more than half (56.8%) of schools do not offer any courses in project management, and in the schools that offer project management courses, not even a third (27.8%) of them deem project management as a course requirement for graduation. Conversely, the same study found that 90.1% of hospitality industry employees felt that project management knowledge and training was necessary for anyone in a supervisory role. Meanwhile, all of the respondents (100%) recognized the need for senior management (Director, VP, or Executive leadership) to have moderate or extensive training in project management (Rengel Jara et al., 2019).

Project management played an integral role in the hospitality industry’s expansive growth over the past 75 years. In parallel fashion, the origins of project management discipline as it is known currently also began in the 1950s. Though projects date back to 2500 BC with the building of ancient pyramids, much of the modern-day project management discipline emerged in the 1950s (Haughey, 2010). It is of great importance to recognize the role that project management has had in the hospitality industry’s growth over the past 75 years. However, it is also imperative that the project management methodology is taught to increase project success, reduce risk, and develop the critical success factors for both organizations and management teams (Project Management Institute, n.d.). Therefore, as curriculum committees debate about offering a project management course, they should consider specializing their project management offering.

For this reason, Timothy M. Flohr (University of Memphis), Catherine R. Curtis, Ph.D. (Florida Gulf Coast University), and William R. Duncan (President of Project Management Partners) have teamed up with Kendall Hunt Publishing to bring the first textbook in project management tailored for hospitality management, Project Management for the Hospitality Industry. It will be offered as a bundled package that will include Area 9®, a digital platform for efficient, precise, and high-impact learning, and SimulTrain®, a game-based project management simulator that allows learners to acquire core competencies while improving teamwork and leadership skills in a realistic and fast-paced environment. Students will also have the opportunity to gain internationally recognized project management certification through the International Project Management Association (IPMA®) by receiving a complimentary training program that will help prepare them for the IPMA Level D® certification. The textbook bundle includes supplemental resources for instructors, instructor and student user guides, test banks, and a full suite of training materials for both online and hybrid learning models available in Spring 2022.

As the hospitality industry continues to evolve with the rapidly changing digital age, hospitality educators must remain committed to preparing students for the demands of the 21st-century workforce. The addition of project management to the hospitality management curriculum is a step in the right direction to better prepare and propel our students for future career success as leaders in the hospitality industry.

Supplemental Material

sj-pdf-1-jht-10.1177_10963480211000830 – Supplemental material for The Importance of Integrating Project Management into Hospitality Management Curriculum

Supplemental material, sj-pdf-1-jht-10.1177_10963480211000830 for The Importance of Integrating Project Management into Hospitality Management Curriculum by Timothy M. Flohr and Catherine R. Curtis in Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research