By Benedicte Flouriot

Who would choose a profession that is known for making you work long hours, miss weekends with your family, for offering average financial compensations and a stressful environment?

Probably no one. Unless…they are passionate. Working in hotels is hard but passion outweighs all the cons of working in the hospitality industry. Being passionate is being fully alive. It’s about experiencing emotions, feelings and enthusiasm in doing something that you love…so it does not feel like work anymore!

Are you this excited person that could only see the fascinating aspects of this profession? What are you passionate about?

You are passionate about people

You would not choose a professional field that does not involve people because your entire life is about people. You live for and with people. You are curious about them and need to interact with all sorts of different individuals to feel alive. Good news! The hospitality industry is full of interesting people: colleagues, clients, visitors, suppliers, you name it! You will have the chance to work with customers and colleagues from a wide range of cultures, coming from many different horizons. Hotels receive an incredible number of international travellers from all over the world, bringing habits and ways of being that may be different from yours. So fascinating! On the other hand, the industry’s workforce is more and more diverse, you will have the chance to work in a team with people who have a different views on life, bringing creative ideas you had never envisioned before and that are inspired from where they come from.

You are passionate about helping others

The main objective of an hotelier is to please people, making sure they are enjoying their stay, feel at home and enjoy one of their best experiences. You want to make them dream, disconnect from their usual existence and be at their service to make them as comfortable as possible. You are an expert in your field and love advising clients according to their preferences. You are emotionally intelligent; it’s your main asset to customize your service to each individual guest. At the end of the day, you feel content and rewarded to have participated in making someone’s day unforgettable.

You are passionate about beauty

Beauty provides a perceptual experience of pleasure and satisfaction and you are addicted to it! Like your guests, you enjoy moving around beautiful interiors, pleasing all your senses, exulting in all the details that have been carefully thought to create a particular atmosphere. And that makes you feel at home too. Beauty is expressed in the interiors, the surroundings, the food, the employee’s grooming. To make you career fulfilling, the environment is as important as the role.

You are passionate about organization

Hotels are known for their Standard Operating Procedures (SOPs), a set of step-by-step instructions to achieve quality and uniformity of service as customers expect consistent standards during their stay. If you are an organizing freak, you may very much enjoy following routines, methods and procedures.

For running their operations, hotels must be very well structured and all of them follow a “traditional organization.” Their structure is hierarchical, power flows vertically and upward, and employees are departmentalized. The hospitality industry is often associated to the military system that is very hierarchical, organized and disciplined. It may sound fixed and rigid, but if you value structure and organization, you may just love it!

You are passionate about getting things done

If you are practical, straightforward, systematic and like getting things done, you will be in the right place. People working in hotels usually prefer to work a problem through by doing something, rather than talking about it, or sitting and thinking about it. They like concrete approaches to situations, fast results and their biggest satisfaction comes from making things happen. A pinch of competitiveness will spice up the whole thing!

You are passionate about movement

If you are having a hard time staying still, you won’t get bored working in the hospitality industry. You will work in a fast-paced environment that is awake 24/7/365. It’s an industry that never stops, never sleeps. It’s always moving and because of that, many more possibilities arise. Finally, you must enjoy the sense of urgency that unpredictable situations constantly create.

If you recognized some of your passion(s) in most of the above ones, you may consider a career in the hospitality industry. Confucius said: “Choose a job you love, and you will never have to work a day in your life”. I wish this to all of you reading this article but working in hotels is not for everyone. If you are not passionate, forget about it, as you will not last!

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