Editor's note: Este artículo está traducido al español.
Las Vegas hospitality workers looking to advance their careers without committing to a full degree program had few options.
Timothy Lam and Ellis Norman set out to change that.
The result was the International School of Hospitality, which launched with a program in conference management and event planning 20 years ago and has steadily grown, said Lam, executive director of the Las Vegas-based institution.
Lam entered the hospitality field driven by a passion for travel that dated back to his childhood. He relocated to Las Vegas to pursue a master’s degree at UNLV, where he met Norman, then a professor.
Together, they recognized the need for nondegree, continuing-education opportunities in the hospitality industry.
“There’s a lot of people who are midlevel in their careers that may not have gone to college,” Lam said. “Then where are they going to go if they want to learn hospitality business courses?”
The school gives people, whether they’re looking for personal or professional enrichment, an option outside of returning to a university — which may not be feasible for them, Lam said.
Classes are offered at night and online, and built for working professionals, he said.
“We always feel that education comes in many forms,” Lam said. “You kind of hear me say that over and over again in different ways. It’s not one-size-fits-all. People look for ways to advance themselves and be at whatever stage they are in life — with their family or their work commitments. It’s not just university. There has to be other opportunities.”
International School of Hospitality’s mission boils down to providing quality, practical, short-term continuing education for, Lam emphasized, a variety of audiences.
Some examples of students may be people who got married and realized they had an affinity for event planning, or they enjoy customer service and might see a career in hospitality. Others, Lam said, may already be working in the industry but are looking to grow laterally.
For instance, people who work at the front desk of a hotel may want to explore another area of the property, Lam said. Cirque du Soleil dancers toward the end of their career may be looking for something complementary and creative, he said.
A medical doctor once even took the school’s concierge certificate program because he wanted to add high-quality customer service to his practice.
“Our community here in Las Vegas is just so diverse, and I think hospitality is something to teach anybody in any service industry,” Lam said.
Meanwhile, the school’s instructors all work in the industry, and have decades of experience, Lam said. Some are executives at Las Vegas Strip resorts or major event companies.
They find the International School of Hospitality to be a good outlet for sharing their stories and what they have learned, he said.
“They teach because they really love what they do, and they want to pass that out,” Lam said. “So they’re very passionate.”
Marti Winer, senior vice president and general manager for the western region for the destination management company Hosts Global, said she got involved with the school because she liked its nontraditional format. She is a member of its board of directors and adviser for its executive team.
“I loved the fact that what they were offering up was incredibly practical,” Winer said. “It was attainable and achievable for people who were actually not just at one point in their career or academic journey, but were at multiple. I love the fact that they had programs for people who were changing careers, or midcareer or trying to figure out a nonlinear career path for themselves.”
The school is in the midst of celebrating a milestone 20 years, in which it’s seen about 3,000 graduates, for about 200 participants a year. Tuition varies depending on the program — an executive diploma in hotel operations, for example, is $7,785 for 315 lecture hours, according to the college’s online catalog.
“It’s an institution that’s sustained 20 years and is still growing and maturing,” Winer said. “Because it can, and the community needs it and we need the community. So I think that there’s just nothing but good hope for the future. I think it will play, has played and will continue to play an important role. And I’m very pleased and honored to be part of it.”
In the past two decades, the school has grown from its initial goal of helping hospitality professionals advance to also include extremely service-oriented programs that Lam said aim to share the “testament of hospitality.”
“Hospitality has a really good name in terms of what we do, and all industries can learn from hospitality,” he said. “And that’s something that we want to be a part of. We want to try to share the word, spread the word of hospitality, of excellent service, and what that means.”
She has watched the school adapt through crises like the COVID-19 pandemic, Winer said, and be an industry partner to corporations in Las Vegas to teach about hospitality, spread the destination’s value and more.
“I’ve seen it really kind of continue to grow and mature and evolve,” she said. “I have a lot of respect for Tim and for the team that’s there for really staying up to date on what’s the trend, what the future might need and being there to answer the needs of the community — instead of sort of waiting for it to get too far and then being like, ‘All right, we should have thought of that.’ ”
The hospitality industry has faced many challenges and economic crises, Lam said, which means it demands quick adaptation to its ebbs and flows.
“But I think the core of the business hasn’t changed,” he said. “The core of the business is still delivering good service to people and good products when encouraging them to come back to us.”
The school now offers a six-month, part-time, online program in hospitality operations for high-potential hospitality professionals who “have nowhere to go to advance their careers,” Lam said. Many individuals from Strip hotels and hospitality companies participate, he said.
It also offers certificate programs in hospitality, conference management, event planning, trade show or hotel operations, leadership, marketing and sales, and professional development programs in soft skills and guest service — not just for hospitality professionals but also those in real estate, weddings or other industries that may require excellent service.
Las Vegas is unique for its high level of service, Lam said, which is why the school is able to offer so many certificate programs — from trade shows to events to conferences to concierge. It’s a testament to what the destination delivers to guests.
“We’re lucky to be in Las Vegas,” he said.
Las Vegas is uniquely situated for an institution like the school to be incredibly successful, Winer said, and have the utmost value. The city is entrenched in the hospitality industry, in a way that other cities cannot relate to, with a plethora of unique career paths and opportunities.
“You might have some parts of those in other cities, but you don’t have nearly as many people who are dedicating their life fully to it the way they do in Las Vegas,” she said. “And as such, they need those extra resources to help their career move along, to have change within the industry, to get from one place to another, or to change direction or to just grow within the path that they want to.”