Online Degrees in Hotel Management

Hotel Management Degrees

Hotel management is a sub-specialty of the broader hospitality field, which is the world's largest industry. A degree in hotel management or administration will allow you to find employment not only in hotels and motels, but also in resorts and on cruise ships and other places that provide short-term accommodation to tourists and travelers.

An associate degree can get you in on the ground floor of the industry, emphasizing as it does the basic business skills involved in hotel administration, as well as industry-specific areas such as food and beverage management, catering operations, event planning, hospitality sales and quality service management. You may even have the opportunity to participate in an internship at a nearby hotel.

At the bachelor's level, many colleges offering hotel management and administration programs operate their own hotels, so you will be able to learn "on the job" as well as in the classroom. You may, if you wish, also pursue study abroad opportunities that will allow you to experience how the hotel industry operates in another country.

At the very top of the field, a few select schools offer Master of Science (MS) and PhD programs in hotel administration. These degrees are focused less on the practical day-to-day aspects of managing an individual hotel, and more on the research methodology that goes into developing corporate policy at the hotel chain level. With a master's or doctorate in hotel management or administration, you are more likely to be teaching in a hospitality degree program than to be managing a hotel yourself.