Degrees in Taipei Focused on Hotels and Tourism

The hospitality industry is a very lucrative one, especially in a booming city like Taipei. The trick to making money in this sector is to find a city on the rise, one that the world is only just beginning to take notice of, and Taipei definitely fits that bill. In 2013 alone there were over 6 million visitors to the city, which made it the 15th most-visited city in the world according to a poll run by MasterCard. To give this some perspective — at least for Westerners who have yet to truly be exposed to what this city can offer — that means that more people visited Taipei in that year than visited Shanghai, Vienna and Tokyo. In fact, the number of people to visit Taipei wasn’t a great deal less than the number that visited cities such as Amsterdam and Barcelona, which are regularly listed as the most popular cities in the world.

The tourism industry is one of the biggest earners for this city. A glance at the city’s skyline and the many towering hotels will tell you just how lucrative this business is. In fact, in 2013 the economy received a boost of over $10 billion thanks to all of this foreign foot-fall.

So, how does that benefit those working in the industry? How do the managers, the cooks, the cleaners, the servers and the receptionists fair? Well, this is an industry that typically pays above the going rate, and one that pays a great deal more for those at the top. That makes hospitality very desirable in Taipei, which is why many youngsters are seeking to get degrees that will help them in this industry.

Skills Alone

To make it in any profession doesn’t just require a degree. The fact that millions of kids all over the world are leaving college with degrees and then struggling to find jobs will testify to this. The average salary for graduates is around NT25,000, which is someway short of the average salary across the board, which is around NT37,000. The average in the lower echelons of the hospitality industry is in line with what graduates earn, maybe a little more, but it is the managerial positions and above that really earn the big bucks in this industry, and these are also the positions you can get even without any qualifications. They do help, of course, but many mangers around the world have made it to where they are because they worked their way up in the company, they proved themselves and their ability and they displayed a certain level of experience, knowledge and determination that caught the attention of those at the very top.

There are many fresh-faced graduates out there and most company bosses are not interested in hiring them. When it comes to finding someone to run their multi-million dollar business they would much rather turn to someone who has experience and can run it without faltering, than to look to someone who may struggle, may be overcome and can easily cost them a lot of money.

If you want to make it in this industry then it seems that you have to work your way up. A degree wouldn’t hurt and it might help you down the line, but the question is whether it is worth spending several years of your life, not to mention a great deal of money, in order to acquire it. If you want to follow the path of many of those with managerial positions in the hospitality industry, then you should try and get in on the ground floor. From there you need to stick at it, you need to show a willingness to learn and to improve, you need to be faultless and you need to display a passion for the industry and your company. If you do, then you will be promoted. If you continue to work hard then one day a managerial position may open and you could be one of the first names on the list.

The Degrees

As we said, a degree would not hurt you and there are some hotels that may want to hire someone who has been educated in this field. If so, they will still seek someone with experience, but it doesn’t hurt to have both. There are several degrees that you can acquire in this industry. Of course, it’s not just about the qualification, it’s not just about the paper, a degree is earned following extensive learning, and through that learning you can understand the industry better and therefore advance within it at a much quicker rate.

If we take the National Taiwan University as an example, the Tourism and Hospitality degree is the sort of qualification that can help you to learn about the industry. This degree is offered in conjunction with the Singapore Tourism Board, among other institutes, and provides specialized learning regarding this rapidly-expanding industry. This course is an undergraduate course and one that can add some weight to your overall studies, whilst teaching you the basics about this industry.

There are other courses, with universities across Taiwan offering some degree or another concerning hospitality and tourism. It is very important to the economy of this country after all, and it is an industry that many young people are keen to get involved with. It is also an industry that people of all ages can become a part of, so if you have always wanted to go to university and get a degree, but have not had the time or the inclination in the past, then there is nothing stopping you from doing it now. Whilst young men and women are hired to managerial roles and other high positions within the industry, the jobs typically go to those above the age of forty, so you have plenty of time to learn about this industry and to get a job in it. If the universities will not take you, then there are online ones that will. In such cases you should be wary about which sites you sign up to, as there are very few online universities that are accepted by employees. Still, if it’s a short course and if you view it as a learning experience instead of one that will lead to an accredited qualification, then you should be okay.