Hospitality and Tourism Administration Program Ensures Diverse Range of Career Opportunities for Grads

What good is a post-secondary program if it can't guarantee its students a range of post-graduate options? After all, college and university programs are the vessels that launch students' careers or help them transition into further education should that be part of their goal. Centennial College has a longstanding reputation for launching students into success by ensuring they are totally career ready and by forging relationships with other institutions that allow students to meet their educational goals by applying credits to bypass certain courses and graduate in less time.

Centennial College's Hospitality and Tourism Administration is an excellent example of a program that presents students with a host of options once they graduate. If students are ready to launch their careers, they may do so in administrative positions in areas that cover the entire hotel industry, including: financial management, housekeeping management, food and beverage management, human resources, sales and marketing management, general management, convention services coordination and tour coordination.

This wide range of options ensures that students of the program will certainly find a career that is in their area of interest. Students who, on the other hand, wish to obtain more education can use Centennial College's partnerships with selected universities, institutes and professional associations to their advantage. This program's partners are: Athabasca University, International Hotel Management Institute (Switzerland), Vancouver Island University, University of Calgary, University of Guelph, University of New Brunswick, University of South Carolina (U.S.A.) and Royal Roads University (B.C.).

There are many other benefits to the program. Firstly, it takes three years to complete, which ensures that students are obtaining a thorough education and are being exposed to cover many topics that will fully prepare them, including: dimensions of tourism, hospitality and tourism marketing, theory of food, world geography for tourism, presenting and communicating effectively, Ontario culture and heritage tourism product, front office operations, wholesale tour operations, meeting and convention management, groups and incentives, responsible tourism and marketing strategies.

Secondly, it balances theory and application of that theory. Hands-on practice is especially beneficial because it allows students to become comfortable with the tasks they will complete — and there are plenty of chances for students to practice on-campus. That's because the tourism and hospitality administration offering is based at Progress Campus, which is home to all School of Hospitality, Tourism and Culture programs and includes a conference centre that is run by students, a restaurant that serves as a living lab as well as residences, which give students the opportunity to interact with “guests” and see how a hotel operates.

Another way in which students receive hands-on practice is to actually be sent into the field to experience how their positions function in the real world and how they will fit in with all of the other hotel departments. The four-day-per-week, 15-week field placement takes place in the final semester of the offering. It can be used to enhance students' resume.