Learn about the Accommodation, Food Service and Hospitality
Everyone who leaves home is a potential customer for the hospitality industry, whether for an hour a day, or longer. That fact makes almost everyone, everywhere, a hospitality industry client (and that's a lot of potential customers).
If you want to be successful in hospitality, you need to understand the services that can be provided; how to provide them, and how to attract and sell a potential client, so they choose your offerings above others.
LEARN ABOUT THE FOOD SERVICE INDUSTRY
If you want to work in the food industry, you need to understand the scope of foods you might be dealing with. Along with meats, fish, vegetables, baked goods and other solid foods, there can also be a very wide range of beverages which you may need to become familiar with.
When we talk about beverages we are referring to any drink except for water...orange juice, tea, milk, and so forth. But for our purposes we are only interested in drinks which are made from plant parts, or extracts from plant parts. This still leaves us with a vast range of drinks. So, for the purpose of this presentation, I'll place plant-derived beverages into specific groups.
One of the most useful, and widely accepted, ways of classifying beverages is to firstly split them into alcoholic and non-alcoholic drinks.
Alcoholic Beverages
Alcoholic beverages are either derived from fruits or sap, or they are derived from grains - predominantly cereal grains such as wheat, rye and rice. In either case, the plant parts may be distilled to produce the beverage, which is how those drinks we refer to as spirits (and the Americans call liquor) are made, or they are fermented and not distilled as is the case with wine and beer.
Non-Alcoholic Beverages
Non-alcoholic beverages include tea, coffee, and cacao, as well as a range of fruit drinks, juices and fizzy drinks. These can be divided into carbonated and non-carbonated drinks.
What about Your Future?
This course will help you develop not only knowledge and skills; but a real awareness of the hospitality industry and the many opportunities it can offer you. Sometimes a student will already be working when they commence this course; or may enter employment while they are studying. For others; you may study; complete the course, and then consider making a move to working in the hospitality industry.
There are many options as your career develops. Some of you may start your own business, perhaps as a caterer, running a guesthouse or a cafe; and others may choose to find work for someone else.
What's involved in Catering? (an example)
Catering is a very competitive industry, and it can be a challenge to balance customer needs, budgets, and still maintain competitive offers.
Caterers can at times work long and unsociable hours, sometimes catering for more than one event in a day. Caterers will often be required to work evenings, public holidays, and weekends.
Catering can be physically demanding, standing for long periods of time, setting up equipment, loading and unloading equipment, carrying heavy food platters, and working long hours.
There can be a significant amount of pressure to ensure the food is prepared in a timely manner and presented well. Mishaps can produce high levels of stress, for example burning the food, a late delivery of produce, dropping a plate of food, etc.
How to become a Caterer
There are many different ways to become a caterer. Many people will start as wait staff then work their way up. Others may come from an event management background. Others will train as chefs then move into catering.
There is no one route to becoming a successful caterer, and ultimately it will come down to developing a certain set of skills, which will probably come through work experience, personal experience, and training of some sort (cooking, business, hospitality, event management etc).
Some of the skills you will need include:
- Leadership skills – depending on your role, most caterers are responsible for running a smooth event. You will need to be confident, and able to use your initiative to solve problems, and have good communication skills to ensure your team gets the job done in a manner that keeps the client happy.
- Time Management – it is crucial that everything is ready for the event you are catering for. It can’t be 10 minutes late, let alone a day late.
- Culinary and creative ability – You will need to be able to develop innovative and appealing menus that please the client, as well as having the ability to produce the food.
- Customer service – this is an important part of a catering role. You will need to be able to give great customer service to your client in the preparation of the event, and excellent customer service to their guests during the event. Having good interpersonal skills will also help you to network and gain new clients.
- Business skills – you will need to have good business skills to effectively manage your business. These skills range form administrative tasks to marketing skills, to financial management skills.
WHAT NEXT?
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