Youth exclusion

Youth exclusion is one of the main disastrous effects of the current crisis in the long run. The majority of Spaniards under 30 is currently unemployed, without counting those who are studying or otherwise unavailable for the labour market. This is up from structurally high youth unemployment.

The Spanish youth live at home with their parents. Just 45,6% of people between 18 and 34 are independent; no more than 21,5% of those under 29 and able to work are economically autonomous. The lack of perspective of employment or an independent home strengthens a cultural emphasis on family life: parents do not want their children to leave home at any cost and the youth do not want to leave home if that would mean losing quality of life.

According to El País, the youth mature sooner but they are more infantilicized. The repercussions of leaving this age group inactive are improductive investments in education, a lack of innovative impulse and a future work force that will be unprepared for their responsibilities.

This situation cannot be solved as long as four destructive factors coalesce:adverse economic circumstances, a speculative housing market, an obsolete education system and overprotective parents.

Top ranking for Barcelona-Maastricht-Oxford Hospitality Master

 

El Innovative Hospitality Management (MSc) de TSI-Turismo Sant Ignasi se sitúa por segundo año consecutivo entre los 5 mejores másters de turismo y hotelería de España, según el ranking publicado hoy por el periódico El Mundo.

La publicación, que reúne a los mejores 250 másters de España, destaca del IHM "su elevada tasa de inserción laboral, y las cadenas hoteleras colaboradoras, como Marriott, Hilton o Ritz-Carlton".

El Innovative Hospitality Management (MSc) es un master universitario que se realiza conjuntamente entre TSI - Turismo Sant Ignasi y la Hotel Management School Maastrich (Maastricht, Países Bajos). El programa también realiza algunos contenidos en colaboración con Oxford Brookes University Business School (Oxford, Inglaterra).

Está dirigido a graduados con un interés particular en los aspectos creativos y multiculturales de la industria hotelera y tiene como puntos fuertes la innovación, la hospitalidad, y la gestión y dirección de empresas hoteleras.

El ranking de El Mundo se realiza a partir de un análisis exhaustivo de los programas, teniendo en cuenta 26 criterios clasificados en categorías tales como la demanda, los recursos humanos, planes de estudio, los resultados generales y recursos materiales. Además, tiene en cuenta las instituciones colaboradoras, el número y el prestigio de los miembros del profesorado, programa académico, relación calidad-precio, tutorías personalizadas para los estudiantes y los resultados obtenidos por los estudiantes.

Para realizar el ranking,  "El Mundo" ha tenido en cuenta las opiniones de más de 500 expertos de los profesores, antiguos alumnos y empresas colaboradoras.

http://www.tsi.url.edu/es/noticias/el_innovative_hospitality_management_de_nuevo_entre_los_5_mejores_masters_en_hoteleria-264

Future Scenarios for Spanish Tourism: Discussion and Wild Cards

At a recent conference on scenario planning for the tourist sector in Spain, I presented the following Key Uncertainties and Wild Cards:

	1. Empty stores are hardly an uncertainty anymore in cities in Northern Europe. Changing comsumer behaviour, combined with the current crisis, will undoubtedly have an impact on inner cities in Southern Europe and on their attractiveness to visitors.
	2. Climate changes may affect tourism to Southern Spain, especially water-intensive tourism (such as golf tourism). Water distribution may even become a source of increasing regional and violent conflict.
	3. A Euro-crisis will have an enormous impact on price sensitive mass tourism, as we find thoughout the Mediterranean. If a country were to abandon the Euro-zone, and would (re-) introduce its own currency, beach tourism would immediately start to flow to the lowest point. (Image: Post in German Bild Zeitung, TUI is already calculating in Drachmae).
	4. The Arab Spring was a protest generated by rising food prices, at least as much as an expression of the desire for freedom and civil rights. It is therefore not hard to imagine that the 'Arab Spring' may spread to (European) countries with a population facing similar problems. Greece? (Image: Fast Company, Let Them Eat … What? High Food Commodity Prices Could Cause A Global Revolution).
	5. Population Decline apparently has ceased to be just a steady (albeit dramatic) change in birth rates, and may be turning into a desastrous, crisis-driven exodus. Ironically, some superficial populism welcomes emigration as an answer to mass unemployment, whereas in fact mass emigration is a phenomenon indicating a steeper crisis curve. (Image: El País, 580.000 People are leaving Spain. Note: This is the size of the entire population of Málaga).
	6. Youth depending on Parents: this is actually a chicken-and-egg phenomenon. In the poorer south of Europe people have traditionally been obliged to live with their parents during their studies and early professional career, for economic reasons. The paradoxical consequence of this tradition is that young adults in the North learn to cope with adverse financial conditions, whereas their southern counterparts may postpone their autonomy until they are able to live under the same standards as before. Thus, they may have developed weaker defense mechanisms for times of crisis. (Image: blogpost Mummies’ boys – the number 1 variable for predicting Eurozone sovereign stress?!, M and G Investments).
	7. Gastronomy becomes unfashionable: This is a more specific, profession-related wild card. In recent decades, many businesses but also many educational institutes have focused heavily on high-end gastronomy, not necessarily a traditional phenomenon in Spain. It may well be that this "Gastronomy as Art" has been closely related to the years of (EU- and speculation-fed) opulence, and that it may therefore again be on the decline. Not that people will stop enjoying food; but they may no longer be interested in self-actualization through cooking.

Conference: Escenarios de futuro para el turismo, Centro Superior de Hostelería de Galicia, November 12, 2011.

Don’t give them fish – rent them fishing rods. The ethics of private education

Cardinal Rouco Varela and Archbishop Manuel Ureña preside the Opening of the Academic Year at a private university (2011)

Spain’s development of parallel public and private university systems is not similar to trends in higher education elsewhere. The ownership, motivation and goals of private universities determine their approach:

• A strict regulation imposes on all universities a strict design for their study plans, with elements considered obsolete elsewhere. Universities cannot differentiate themselves in content.
• Private universities do not distinguish themselves through their faculty, on the contrary: due to differences in salary and other conditions (job security), there is a constant leakage of experienced teaching staff to public universities.
• A year’s tuition in public universities will add up to € 1.000 as opposed to close to € 10.000 in private universities. Now, what is the incentive for a candidate student for choosing a private rather than a public university, if the product is similar? In many cases, the motivation will be the minimum entry grades.
• Despite the quality of their student intake, private universities aim for a maximum drop-out rate of 2%, for obvious reasons. The percentage of students abandoning their studies may be closer to 25 elsewhere.

Private universities in general offer similar programmes, with less qualified faculty, to wealthy students that have hardly been selected on academic criteria – and will be allowed to complete their studies without exams becoming effectively selective. The degrees awarded by these universities constitute a certification of upper class origin, rather than an academic qualification.

Spain’s private universities are normally non-profit organisations promoted by the Catholic Church. An auto-financing socialisation tool.

Bureaucratic / Political deadlock

Initiating an (official) University degree in Spain requires permission at three levels, once all internal barriers (the universities' own committees and boards) have been dealt with: the regional autonomous government which ratifies the economic and educational justification, the University quality board at national level and finally a verification, again by the local government, where compliance with all regulations is checked.

What are the advantages of an official title? You will get a document signed by the King of Spain, normally not earlier than two years after completing your studies because of a centralized process. Holders will have access to State exams to enter into the Civil Service. Besides that, an official title gives prestige, and is frequently displayed on office walls, a custom in other countries only known in barber shops.

Earlier this year we applied for authorization of an official Degree in "Management of Hospitality Businesses". We went past step 1, but at step 2 this denomination was not approved since it was too similar to "Business Management". There are no legal grounds for this objection, for the denomination of university titles has been liberalized with Bologna.

We were obliged to call the degree "Tourist and Hotel Management". It is likely that this new denomination will lead to objections or a veto from the local Government. The reason will be the use of the word "Tourism"; they are reluctant to allow titles that may compete with their own Tourist schools.

Negotiations are currently in progress. The results are unknown, except for one certainty bureaucracies always give: delays.

Working Internationally: the W-Curve

Reflection on the W-Curve of students during exchanges and traineeships abroad

The so-called W-curve is a known phenomenon in literature on expat experiences. Originally it was thought of as a V, reflecting the deep crisis people may go through at the start of their international experience. It turned into a double-U when researchers realised that this crisis would repeat when expats went home after a prolonged stay abroad.

That the W is a reality is something that I have not only experienced for myself; I have tutored many Ws over the years, mainly with Dutch students. The last few years, working with Spanish students, I have noticed a differently shaped, assymetric W though. The homesickness crisis being more profound, home (family) support will not seek to help the individual overcome the crisis, but will exercise pressure to avoid it alltogether by cancelling the international experience.

This can be interpreted as a consequence of the Individualism-Collectivism dimension. Education is not the start of an individual venture, but a socialization aimed at providing the community member with a set of commonly recognizable experiences, and the documents to prove it.

This may be an element that seriously affects both the individual's and the community's competitiveness. I believe we as educators should insist on the development of personal autonomy through international experiences.

Hostelería y Turismo: dos disciplinas diferentes

Discussion article in the Comunidad-Hosteltur Forum, on the fact that Spanish Universities offered "Tourism" but not "Hospitality" as an independent field of study.

A nadie se le ocurriría decir que en Cornell o en Lausanne se estudia "Turismo". No obstante, aquí se suele pensar que para tareas de gestión en hoteles hay que estudiar "Turismo", y para ser cocineros o camareros, "Hostelería".

Para mí, hay tres malentendidos fundamentales. En primer lugar, si los clientes de un hotel no son turistas (sino gente de negocios, participantes en un congreso, delegaciones oficiales etc.), el hotel desde luego no es un "establecimiento turístico".

En segundo lugar, en las escuelas de turismo no se enseña gestión. Lo que llamamos "gestión" es saber trabajar con gente; el resto, como contabilidad,derecho mercantil e incluso muchas materias denominadas "gestión de ...", son asignaturas de "Administración". Es otra cosa.

Esta confusión tiene que ver con la idea absurda que todo trabajo con papel sea noble, y otras tareas manuales, de un nivel inferior. Por supuesto, rellenar un excel no es menos operativo que hacer una tortilla francesa. Sin embargo, hay quienes piensan que teclear es gestionar.

Finalmente, el tercer malentendido es que gestionar actividades turísticas es parecido a gestionar empresas hoteleras. En España, las escuelas de turismo surgieron en los años sesenta, en el auge del propio turismo: había que convertir pescadores en hosteleros. El método era el mismo: si antes había que echar la red donde había migraciones de peces, ahora se construían hoteles donde había movimientos turísticos. La asignatura de "Sociología del Turismo" es precisamente el estudio de estas migraciones.

Por esto, la carrera de Turismo no siempre es una adecuada preparación para trabajar en hoteles; para dirigirlos, mucho menos.

[Comunidad Hosteltur]

Conclusiones del III Foro Nacional de Escuelas de Hostelería AEHOS

Barcelona, 22 y 23 de octubre de 2007
 
 
La Escuela Superior de Hostelería de Barcelona ha acogido en su nueva sede, durante los días 22 y 23 de Octubre, el III Foro Nacional de Escuelas de Hostelería, que con el título “PASADO, PRESENTE Y FUTURO DE LA HOSTELERÍA” ha reunido a varios de los más importantes centros formativos de hostelería de toda España y a destacados representantes del sector hostelero y turístico de nuestro país.
 
Definitivamente, y en palabras de nuestro ex presidente D. Kepa Olabarrieta, los Foros se han constituido en la plataforma idónea para la puesta en común de problemáticas generales y comunes a todas las Escuelas de Hostelería, independientemente de su tipología y ubicación geográfica.

LUNES 22  DE OCTUBRE
 
9.30 – 9.45 Bienvenida y presentación del Foro Barcelona 2007 – A cargo de D. Kepa Olabarrieta, Ex Presidente de la Asociación de Escuelas de Hostelería (AEHOS).
 
9.45 – 11.00 Ponencia “De los recursos humanos a los humanos con recursos”. A cargo del Prof. Doménec Biosca, Presidente Fundador de la Asociación de Directivos de Empresas Turísticas (ADETUR).
 
11.30 – 12.45 Coloquio – Dirigido por el Prof. Doménec Biosca, Coordinador General de la Confederación Empresarial de Hostelería y Restauración de Cataluña.

13.00 – 14.00 Ponencia y coloquio “Teoría y práctica en las carreras universitarias” – A cargo del Prof. Jeroen Oskam, Director Académico de Estudios Superiores de la Escuela de Hostelería de Zaragoza.
 
MARTES  23  DE OCTUBRE
9.30 – 10.30 Ponencia y coloquio “Recursos humanos y formación en hostelería: asignatura pendiente” – A cargo de José María Rubio, Presidente de la Federación Española de Hostelería – FEHR.

11.00 – 11.45 Ponencia “La formación y la adaptación al mundo del trabajo” – A cargo de D. Oriol Crespo, Jefe de Cocina de El Bulli (Tarragona) – Tres estrellas Michelin - .
 
11.45 – 12.30  Ponencia “La relación Escuela / Restaurante: pasado, presente y futuro” – A cargo de D. Pedro Monje, co-gerente del Rest. Via Véneto (Barcelona) - Premio Nacional de Gastronomía y Premio al Mejor Equipo de Sala del 2003 - .
 
12.30 – 13.30 Coloquio – Dirigido por D. Francisco Orobitg, Presidente de AEHOS.

Resumen de las conclusiones: http://www.aehos.es/forobarcelona/CONCLUBARNA.pdf.

A new and innovative degree

Interview announcing the start of Zaragoza Hotel Management School, September 1, 2007: