The William F. Harrah College of Hospitality is one of UNLV’s most notable programs, credited with developing future leaders in tourism—especially at home on the Strip.
While the pandemic slowed tourism worldwide, that was only temporary and the hospitality industry has come roaring back, said Stowe Shoemaker, dean of the college, in an interview with Vegas Inc.
In fact, he says, UNLV graduates are in high demand. “Essentially, every hospitality firm is looking for employees. All of our students are getting multiple job offers,” Shoemaker said. “They’re really able now to choose where they want to live and work, and what company they want to work for.”
Here’s the rest of our interview, which has been edited for clarity.
What’s new with the College of Hospitality?
This school year will be the second that we’ve had our new curriculum in place. We’ve doubled down on hospitality and hospitality operations, and we’ve given students the opportunity for concentrations—which are made up of 15 credits—that are much more detailed than in the past. We’ve started a concentration in the fast-casual segment, which is a very fast-growing area. That’s because of a generous gift from Andrew and Peggy Cherng of Panda Express. We’re also getting ready to launch a concentration in tribal gaming, which is the result of a gift from the San Manuel Band of Mission Indians, along with a concentration in human resources.
What about enrollment? Is there added interest of late on that end?
Enrollment across all hospitality programs has been slowing since COVID-19, to be frank. We rationalize that part of that is because many students were online learning and perhaps didn’t have that pressure from guidance counselors and friends about where they were going to go to school. Everybody kind of put a pause on college. People wanted to see if students would be on campus or just online, so enrollment at universities in general has been down. At UNLV, since we accept students pretty much right up until the start of classes, we’ll likely see a big surge in last-minute enrollment when people begin to realize that 95% of our classes this year will be in person.
Are there more returning education students coming into the program since the onset of the pandemic?
We’re seeing that there is a lot of interest from people in upping their skill set. If and when people were furloughed, they started thinking about whether they wanted to stay in a given industry. If they decided they wanted to stay in the hospitality industry, they started to think about what they had to do to improve themselves and those skill sets. Our master’s program has increased tremendously. We also have an online master’s degree, which has seen a large enrollment increase.
With advances in technology, there’s a general thought that there will be fewer hospitality jobs available in the future. Is that the correct way to think about how technology will change the industry in the coming years?
When you think about the hospitality industry, you’re not just buying a room to sleep in or food to eat; you’re buying an experience, and experiences are created by people. We use technology to improve the overall experience, but not replace the experience. For example, nobody wants to wait in a long line to check into a hotel, so we’ve used technology to enable people to check-in quickly and go right to their room. Does that mean there’s less desk clerks? Not necessarily. It just means the consumer now has a choice. My wife and I like to talk to a person, because we usually have lots of questions. We’re still going to need people to deliver on those experiences. The hospitality industry goes in cycles, but we always come back.
What’s the future of the Las Vegas experience?
I’m very bullish on our city. There’s probably no more famous destination in the world than Las Vegas. We’ll have some blips, just like the entire economy will, but at the end of the day, I think COVID-19 has shown that people like to be out and about. They like to do things with their friends and family. We have so many things to do here, and people love that.