Learning framework for the development of key skills in the hospitality industry

The hospitality sector is one of the most competitive industries and it is one of the leading engines of the world economy. The current crisis in the sector due to the COVID-19 makes organizations to consider more than ever the unique and the alignment of their services for becoming different from their competitors. In this sense, the hospitality skills have been identified as one of the crucial elements in the strategy by the companies because of the wide and diverse offer of tourism services and, at the same time, the new customer expectations which are pushing the organizations to create customized, unique and memorable experiences. Thus, this change of paradigm leads to a constant reflection on the quality that services should offer in line with customer expectations. The aim of this research is twofold. On the one hand, the article identifies service orientation, empathy and teamwork as key competences in the development of the hospitality skills. On the other hand, the paper presents a learning framework of those skills within the University studies. This framework proposes an incremental learning process organized in three phases -Discover, Reflection and Experience- through the period of the academic program. First, the identification of their hospitality profile based on the three skills is done through a discovered process. Next, students reflect about the contents and best practices related to strategical and operational aspects linked to the sector. Finally, students experience all the previous concepts through an internship. One of the main benefits of this learning framework is that allows academic supervisors to define goals and monitoring the achievement of these competences of the students along the different academic years.