Have your friends ever told you that you’re a welcoming person?
Do you like putting things in order and making difficult things seem effortless?
If so, you just might find your calling in the hospitality industry. Whatever your particular interests are, we’ll help you find a way to do it while making good money in a hospitality setting.
Here are 7 of the best hospitality jobs out there to put you on the path to success:
1. Event Manager
The hospitality industry might be known for individual stays, but a huge part of the field has to do with event planning.
If you want to be an event manager, you should know it’s a job with a lot of moving parts. You’ll need to be a financial planner, a client liaison, a vendor outreach expert, and a reviewer—all at once!
Being an event manager also means you’ll need to think on your toes and be creative. As the last several months have taught all of us, hospitality jobs depend heavily on how keen people are on gathering and traveling.
This doesn’t mean you’re signing up for an unpredictable career (though, in a way, all careers are). It just means you’ll need to think outside the box to take on the toughest challenges.
2. Chef
Executive chefs and pastry chefs have some of the best-paying hospitality jobs in the industry. If you love food and interacting with people, this could be perfect for you.
You can get started by working smaller jobs in the food section first, such as a line cook or server. You don’t even have to start within the hotel industry, though the experiential knowledge from a background like this would go a long way.
As a chef in a hotel, theme park, or transportation environment, your special role will be to make people feel at ease in a space that’s outside of their routine. You might not be talking directly to the customers, but you should know how to convey reliability and warmth in your food.
3. Wedding Planner
You might not think a wedding planner is part of the hospitality industry, but lots of hotels and reception venues have in-house wedding planning experts.
If you’re interested in the idea of event planning and are a sucker for romance, wedding planning might be right for you. It also helps if you’re cool-headed in times of high pressure. Weddings are often once-in-a-lifetime events for the people getting married, so you might find yourself working under the enormous pressure of “This has to be a perfect day.”
So if you’ve got a knack for organization and you can stay calm and focused, there could be wedding bells in your future—lots of them.
4. Sommelier
If you have exceptional taste buds and are great at sounding professional, you might make a great sommelier.
And even if you aren’t already an expert in wines, this is a skill you can build up with practice. There are special trainings and certifications you can aim for, and these will help you land the perfect sommelier job.
Even if you don’t end up liking the sommelier role, learning how to taste wines won’t be a wasted skill. Lots of people do this just for fun and for their personal lives. The difference for you will be that it could turn into a lucrative career.
5. Fitness Instructor
Whether you’re a fitness buff interested in instructing or you’ve been teaching for a while, you could turn that interest into an exciting new career as a fitness instructor in the hospitality industry.
Not every hotel has a gym, let alone exercise classes. So if you’re aiming to be a fitness instructor in a hotel, you’re already on the path to a high-quality work environment.
Teaching fitness classes in hospitality has some differences from regular teaching. You might see the same faces a few times in a row, but never for very long. You’ll get new students all the time, so you’ll have to be engaging and welcoming from the get-go.
If you’re the kind of person who can build rapport in a snap, being a fitness instructor in a nice hotel could be the perfect job for you.
6. IT Manager
This is one of the highest-paid positions in hospitality, and there’s a pretty clear path to working your way up. If you already work in IT, see if your qualifications match any openings in the hospitality field. And even if you know nothing about IT right now, you can try starting as an assistant.
In hospitality, an IT manager is one of the more behind-the-scenes roles. You’ll be making sure the whole experience runs smoothly, from security to guest internet to event elements.
If this sounds like something you’d enjoy doing, this could be the best job in hospitality for you.
7. One of the Best Hospitality Jobs for Travel: Flight Attendant
If you want to go on new adventures every week, you can travel the planet as a flight attendant.
Just because a plane does its service in the sky doesn’t mean it’s not hospitality. You might even encounter more face-to-face interaction with guests as a flight attendant than in another hospitality position.
Being a flight attendant has its obvious travel perks. But it also involves lots of team switches, so it’s especially great for people who can make friends easily. You’ll be trading a bit of stability for a world of exploration.
Good Luck Out There!
The hospitality industry is filled with lots of different roles, all working together to provide the smoothest guest experience possible. With enough poking around, you just might find the perfect position for your personality and skillset. After all, the best hospitality jobs are the ones that draw on what people already love to do.
And for more advice on how to make your professional life one you’re excited to work on, check out our related articles!
