Recent research commissioned by AHLA Foundation, the charitable arm of the American Hotel and Lodging Association, projects robust demand for hotel industry jobs over the next five years, outpacing overall market job growth.
The AHLA Foundation asked Lightcast, a labor market analytic firm, for data on demographic and growth trends that would help identify and map career pathways in the hotel and lodging industry. In addition to a report, the result of the research is a dynamic, interactive dashboard that allows job seekers to explore and compare roles, requirements and compensation across a range of hospitality careers.
The hotel industry currently employs 1.8 million workers in the United States. The AHLA Foundation report projects job growth of 12 percent in the hotel industry over the next five years, compared to 8.0 percent for the nation overall. A large share of this demand is at the entry level or in roles that don’t require college degrees, validating the hotel industry’s potential as an engine for mobility.
“It’s an attractive time to enter the hotel industry,” AHLA Foundation President Anna Blue said in a statement. “A key part of our work at AHLA Foundation is supporting the recruitment, retention and advancement of people in our industry. Understanding the entry points where careers begin, where they lead and what paths they take is a critical step to helping find their home in hospitality.”
Lightcast used its real-time, proprietary databases and industry parsing to create the interactive dashboard for understanding career pathways in the hotel and lodging industry from 2010-2023. The interactive dashboard is available here.
The full report is available at https://www.ahlafoundation.org/funded-research/.