Top 7 Soft Skills for a Career in Hospitality and Tourism Management
To excel in hospitality and tourism, you need a range of soft skills that help you deliver outstanding service and build strong relationships. In this article, we explore the top seven soft skills that are essential for success in this field.
What are Soft Skills?
Soft skills refer to a set of interpersonal abilities that influence how individuals interact, communicate and work with others. In the hospitality and tourism industry, these skills are particularly crucial as they directly impact customer satisfaction and overall service quality.
Unlike technical or ‘hard’ skills, which are industry-specific and can be taught through formal education, soft skills are more intrinsic and revolve around personal attributes such as emotional intelligence, adaptability, and teamwork. These skills are highly sought after by employers in hospitality and tourism, as they determine how well professionals can handle guests, resolve conflicts, and create a welcoming atmosphere.
Pursuing a masters in tourism and hospitality management, an MA tourism or a masters in hospitality management will provide you with the industry-relevant knowledge and essential soft skills in the hospitality and tourism industry you need to succeed in this fast-paced and ever-changing field.
7 Essential Soft Skills for a Successful Career in Hospitality and Tourism
The importance of soft skills in hospitality and tourism should not be underestimated. But what exactly are the top soft skills you need to develop?
- Empathy and emotional intelligence: Wide-scale digitisation is certainly the future of the tourism and hospitality industry. However, that does not mean that human contact becomes any less important. Human capital is one of the key investments an organisation has to make in order to bring innovative solutions to business issues. For instance, when a customer reaches out with a complaint or some issue they might be facing, it is a person with soft skills in the hospitality and tourism industry who is best capable of handling and resolving such issues better than a chatbot or a computer. It is people who determine the success of an enterprise, and that’s why those who are skilled in this area go a long way as it is a mostly service-reliant industry.
- Teamwork: Every organisation looks to hire individuals with excellent teamwork skills as they are likely to be able to integrate easily into an existing team. People who have excellent communication and interpersonal skills are more approachable and therefore easier to work with, making teamwork one of the most crucial hospitality management skills. After all, it is the collective work of a company and its workforce that needs to be applied in order to stay ahead in the ever-changing industry of hospitality.
- Customer service skills: Customers are everything in this business as they are ultimately the ones to fund the salaries of staff and other expenses of a hotel or restaurant. You need to build trust and great relationships with customers to ensure their return and investment into your service. For this reason, it is highly important that the customers’ needs are always met and that they are satisfied with the level of service you are offering. Without an excellent workforce teaming up to provide a positive experience to their customers, it would not be possible for your business to survive in this industry.
- Networking skills: Networking is highly important in the hospitality industry and is one of the most important tourism management skills employers look for in candidates while hiring. Unlike other industries, networking in this sector is not purely aimed at enhancing job prospects, but for improving relations with the customer and making them use your services again. The idea is to enable or repeat business. Building a loyal relationship with clients is a key driver in keeping hospitality businesses running in the long run.
- Influencing skills: Influential people are often emotionally intelligent and have a positive outlook on life, thus motivating their team to work hard. Without these skills such immense pressure of work cannot be delivered successfully. Someone who is influential inspires people to work well together as a team.
- Communication: In the hospitality and tourism industry, professionals deal with lots of people on a day-to-day basis. Human interaction and effective communication are two of the fundamental ways this industry operates. You’ll have to work with professionals from diverse backgrounds, ages and temperaments. The ability to communicate with your co-workers will build trust within the team and help you bond with others in your industry.
- Leadership: Leadership skills are as essential in this industry as any other. Hospitality professionals should learn to foster an atmosphere of continued learning and quick thinking. They need to be excellent at delegation and discipline as well listening not just to customer grievances, but employee concerns too. You may have to oversee the functioning of different departments at some point in your career and therefore build your leadership skills in the field.
How to Develop These Soft Skills
Developing soft skills requires hands-on experience, continuous learning and self-awareness. One of the best ways to refine these skills is through internships and real-world exposure, where students can practice customer service, teamwork and problem-solving in a professional setting. Hospitality management courses also play a crucial role by incorporating practical training and interactive learning. Attending workshops, networking with industry experts and actively engaging in teamwork exercises further help in building confidence and adaptability. Regular self-assessment and feedback from mentors or colleagues can also highlight areas for improvement, allowing you to strengthen your interpersonal abilities over time.
Searching for a relevant MA tourism and hospitality programme? Check out the tourism and hospitality master’s programme offered by the Berlin School of Business and Innovation (BSBI), an institution renowned for its expert teaching faculty and small interactive classrooms.
BSBI offers industry-relevant programmes, tailored to training the business leaders of tomorrow. Students can choose to study online, on campus or via blended learning. The school also has dedicated career assistance services that are essential for students’ transition from the classroom to the workplace.
