Hospitality Industry: Segments Segments: Hospitality Industry

Segments in the Hospitality Industry

The hospitality industry is a multi-billion dollar, complex industry covering a wide range of jobs, economic brackets, activities, and locations. It comprises of five major segments: lodging, food service, tourism, meeting and event planning, and the cruise line industry. These five segments and the employment prospects that they offer hospitality graduates have been discussed in the subsequent subsections. We begin with the largest segment in the industry --food service.

The food service industry, also known as the food and beverage industry, covers the various business segments that prepare food for customers. It is estimated that 50% of all meals eaten in the United States on any given day comes from the foodservice industry (BLS, 2012). The industry can be categorized into three: commercial food service, institutional food service, and food service within a consumer business. Commercial food service businesses are those that compete for customers and are driven by the profit-maximizing motive. They include full-service restaurants, quick-service restaurants, and catering businesses. Institutional food service joints, unlike the commercial joints, provide food and drinks to customers within an institution such as a factory, military base, hospital, or school. Finally, there is the foodservice within a consumer business. These are food and beverage businesses located within...

They can be either quick-service or full-service businesses. It is estimated that with so many people opting to dine out as opposed to buying groceries to cook for themselves, the food service industry continues to offer promising opportunities for food entrepreneurs. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the foodservice segment currently employs over 10 million staff, providing promising opportunities for graduates to take up careers in restaurant management, food service management and other managerial-level roles (BLS, 2012).
Second in line is the lodging industry, popularly known as the accommodation industry. This segment covers businesses that provide people with a place to sleep at night. They could be anything from a highway side motel, to a campground, an elder hostel, a youth hostel, or a fancy hotel. They can be categorized into four: institutional housing, specialty accommodations, limited service providers, and full service hotels, and serve a wide array of market segments including special travelers, long-stay travelers, budget travelers, leisure travelers, meeting attendees, and business travelers. The Bureau of Labor Statistics estimates that the lodging industry in the U.S. employs approximately 1.5 million people, and the figure is expected to rise as the demand for accommodation rises owing to globalization and liberalization, both of which are deemed to increase…