The first of its kind, The Hospitality Show is a bold new event for the entire hospitality ecosystem with one shared goal: operating hotels efficiently and profitably. Brought to you by The American Hotel & Lodging Association and Hotel Management, the event will bring together top industry leaders, senior executives of hotel brands, owners, operators, management companies and procurement specialists—and their teams—to discover, network and drive profitability.
Business accelerates when the right people are in the room, and this new weekly series of speaker interviews goes 1:1 with the industry’s best and brightest as they build the inaugural event to be held June 27-29, 2023 at The Venetian Resort Las Vegas.
In this installment, we catch up with The Hospitality Show Speaker Michael Cheng, dean of the Chaplin School of Hospitality & Tourism Management at Florida International University.
What issues are currently causing headaches for the industry?
Cheng: Labor shortage continues to dominate the conversation among hospitality professionals, and nation-wide enrollment declines in hospitality programs has been worrying academic administrators like me for a while. Some programs have experienced as much as 50 percent decline, with the majority reporting about 20 percent decline over a five-year period. The combination of pandemic-related departures from our hospitality industry, the changing preferences of the younger workforce for careers in IT, and the declining enrollment of college-age students in hospitality management programs means we all need to work together to address this issue. While many conversations have been started, there is still a lack of alignment between industry and academia when it comes to labor shortage and enrollment.
What new trends do you see affecting the hospitality industry the most in 2023?
Cheng: Automation and AI. Hospitality is inherently a high-touch industry, and we will always need the human touch. But the slow speed of technological adoption within hospitality that can help us automate and improve our service continues to create strains on our labor force. I recently traveled through Hong Kong, and even highly secured areas like immigration entry/exit is using automation, facial recognition and AI to process these mundane tasks. There are endless opportunities for our hospitality industry to focus on what matters and be less reliant on humans to speed up everyday processes.
What do you see as the biggest opportunity for the industry as we make our way through 2023?
Cheng: Learning from other industries, like the one I just mentioned. AI is already in use in colleges by students, and professors are incorporating the use of AI in their lectures and assignments. Let us be the launchpad for innovations that can propel our industry forward! For that to be successful, we need support and guidance from industry. What are bottlenecks and where do you need the most help immediately?