A booming tourist industry pits a small academic program against the best in the hospitality business. By the looks of things, business has never been better.

    Were you treated well at the last restaurant where you dined? Was your complaint handled satisfactorily at the front desk during your last hotel stay? Was the sound system in your meeting room what you expected?

    Faculty and students at FSU’s Department of Hospitality Administration are working to turn your answers into the affirmative, especially if your experience was in the Sunshine State.

    "We’re not a typical (academic) department," says Dr. Joe West, chairman and associate professor of the department, a part of the College of Business. "We’re very outwardly focused."

    When he took over as department chairman in 1991, West says he was faced with steep budget cuts. His answer was to try to become as self-sustaining as possible. "I knew we had to become entrepreneurial," he says.

    Entrepreneurial in a sense that West and his faculty tapped private resources to build the majority of the his department's new headquarters in the south end zone of FSU's University Center. Entrepreneurial in that the department established the exclusive University Center Club as a combination "real-world laboratory" for students and revenue generator for the university -- all on private dollars.

    And definitely entrepreneurial in its faculty research projects, as the majority of research goes right back to the industry.

    Their approach may be unique when compared to other hospitality programs, West says, but it’s what was needed to thrive in the ever changing industry of lodging, food service and tourist attractions.

Show me the money

    You’ve got your Tostito Fiesta Bowl, your Lipton Golf Classic and Tennis Tournaments. So why not your James Seiner Executive Management Training Facility or Cecil B. Day Hospitality Technology Center?

    When FSU was launching a capital campaign to build the University Center in 1990, West was considering his own capital campaign to build a hotel, restaurant and conference center somewhere on campus.

    "I could see that the state wasn’t going to be giving us any more money," he says.

    Because the hospitality industry was already benefiting from the department through employee recruitment, research and consulting projects, when West got the okay from the Florida Board of Regents, he started asking industry partners to step up to the plate to fund the department’s expansion.

    The department managed to raise $6 million of the $14 million which went to build the south end zone building at the University Center at Doak Campbell Stadium to give hospitality administration a new home. Only a small percentage--$2.48 million--was state matching funds. The Seminole Boosters, a nonprofit support group for FSU athletics, raised the balance.

    All technology and most of the furniture in the department’s five classrooms was purchased through private-sector funding. Industry partners also helped them equip their teaching kitchens with $1.5 million worth of equipment for only $600,000. "It was mostly through alumni," West says. "They appreciate their education."

    The department moved into its new digs in December 1997, and today a few remnants of the old hospitality administration classrooms remain--like an antique-quality podium. But West seems confident he’ll find a sponsor for that item, too.

    The Technology Center, named for the founder of Days Inn, whose son graduated from the program, received $200,000 from the company to furnish the center with 25 computer stations and a like amount to upgrade equipment. The company also threw in another $200,000 for a professorship.

    Sponsors for classrooms--at a price tag of $50,000 or more--had rooms named for them, complete with a brass plaque outside of the door.

    And, by the way, West prefers to call them "laboratories," not classrooms, for good reason, considering their high-tech nature. Each has a built-in, high-speed computer with the latest in presentation software, plug-ins for laptops, a complete audio visual system with theater-quality sound, a VCR, and a state-of-the-art document camera that replaces the old overhead projector.

    As another form of recognition and incentive, donors who gave $10,000 or more in the fundraising effort are featured on what West refers to as "a wall of fame." Each wrote letters of congratulations to the department on their company letterhead, which was framed, and now the collection covers a 15-by-15-foot space on a second story lobby wall.

    The names might sound familiar: Hobart Corp., Outback Steakhouse, Inc., and Brinker International (Chili’s Grill & Bar), which is signed by Senior V.P. Jay E. Towers, followed by the inscription "Hospitality Class of ‘75."

    Another valuable resource resulted from a trade-out partnership. The state’s Department of Business and Professional Regulation’s hotel and restaurant division was given space in the building in exchange for allowing students to use its extensive library.

Dishing up food and experience

    But what is a department focused on hospitality without a place to feed the masses? Hence the justification for the upscale University Center Club, which offers casual dining on the grille level, overlooking the Seminole football field, with banquet facilities and more formal dining on other levels.

    West calls it a "real-world laboratory." Department majors must complete 1,000 hours of industry experience before graduation. With the club, they can go to school and work in the same building.

    "We’re taking care of the students and providing a service to the university at the same time," West says. He notes that "the club" receives no public money. It was built and continues to operate using private sources.

    Operation of the club is a three-way partnership between the Seminole Boosters, Department of Hospitality and Club Corporation of America. Club Corp. manages the day-to-day operations.

    "It’s a food and beverage lab," says department chairman, Joe West. "It gives (students) real-world experience under real-world pressures. It also has real-world problems when people don’t show up for work."

    It would be rare for hospitality majors to duplicate the kind of experience they get while working at the club, says West. For example, recently the club held a Fred Biletnikoff Awards banquet for 510 guests. The associate and assistant chefs for the event were hospitality majors. Even though there was also a non-student executive chef, the students were responsible for production planning and execution of the meal.

    "That’s hands-on kind of stuff," says West., which leads to a better understanding of the industry. "You can’t manage a process if you don’t understand it," he says

Research a la carte

    The faculty has been living up to its end of the bargain by giving back to the industry in a big way. Like the department’s curriculum, research projects are diverse. Recent projects conducted by faculty range from training the visually impaired to be food service managers to helping the state's lodging industry develop an emergency management plan for hurricanes or other natural disasters.

    Dr. Jacqueline de Chabert, assistant professor, is creating a video and interactive CD-ROM training program for welfare recipients to gain jobs in the food service industry. It started as a partnership with the National Restaurant Association and Community Kitchens, a non-profit organization geared toward feeding the homeless. The idea is to use the resources to train the homeless in meal production at soup kitchens, but already Burger King and Marriott have expressed an interest in buying the program to train their potential employees as well.

    "Our research is very practical based and turns into opportunities for consulting," de Chabert says. "All of the industries cooperate because of the relationships we’ve had with them. And many companies employ our graduates who want to give back. A lot are interested in keeping tight ties."

    Not surprisingly, it takes substantial cooperation by the hospitality industry for department faculty investigators to gain permission to go snooping into corporate affairs. But because of the positive partnerships built over the years, faculty are given access to everything from human resource files to highly guarded financial data.

    Fortunately, the department maintains a list of graduates who are now employed in the industry through its Society of Hosts alumni organization. de Chabert says she and other faculty tap the list for research, networking and job placement for students.

    Associate professor Dr. Mark Bonn prefers to juggle several research projects at once and tap into student labor in the process. It makes sense, considering he teaches courses in services marketing, analysis of hospitality operations and tourism management.

    He is credited with bringing in an average of $85,000 worth of research projects in recent years, usually choosing projects that fit well with his location and interests.

    Bonn has a $30,000 annual contract with the Tallahassee and Leon County Convention and Visitor’s Bureau to provide details about visitors to the Capital City. "I don’t have to travel to get the data collected," Bonn says. And the university’s resources--including graduate students who need experience in research--help him keep costs to a bare minimum.

    To address specific industry needs, Bonn helped establish the Resort and Condominium Management concentration in 1994, a 12-credit hour curriculum taught off-campus in Destin.

    Starting in the industry in 1969, department professor Dr. Bob Brymer has focused most of the past 20 years studying leadership, the executive personality and managerial styles in the hotel industry. Brymer was one of the first researchers to write comprehensive articles on the value of empowering employees in the industry.

    Two major challenges he cited in implementing the employee empowerment concept were management and employees. He says it's tough to convince management to push decision-making down to the lowest level--the front-line employees who take care of guests--and give them the authority to handle a problem when confronted with it. It’s an even bigger hurdle to get 1,000 or more employees to practice the concept.

    "These things don’t just happen," he said. "You don’t just tell staff, ‘Come in, smile and be friendly.’ There’s got to be a strategic vision and framework of how you’re going to achieve this level of excellence."

    Brymer says his research has told him that high-quality, excellent service organizations have a plan that they diligently follow and continuously improve upon.

    On empowerment alone, he says, "There’s no question about it, we’ve proven over and over again that this is very successful when implemented correctly."

    More recently, Brymer’s research projects have been on the service strategies for hotels--how to resolve what he calls "service recovery," or the resolution of customer problems when they arise. He has helped hotels implement successful service recovery systems in their operations.

    "Most of the outside experience I gain is over the summer break or over Christmas holiday or spring break," he says. "At those times, when I’m not teaching, I’m able to go out and spend time in hotel operations and see first hand what they’re doing and help them modify their systems. I can take that directly to the classroom the next week or next month and inform students what is done in the industry right now."

    He usually stays as a guest at a hotel he is reviewing and often comes away with incidents to include in his report and bring back to the classroom.

    "I can take that example back to my students this week and ask them, ‘If you were a manager, what would you do to get them to handle it this way. . . what are the steps to get them to do it?"

    Besides industry journal articles, much of the faculty’s research turns up in educational literature circulated in the industry.

    Bonn, West and instructer Robert Riedel collaborated on recent project to develop an emergency management visitor assurance plan focusing on Florida visitors staying in commercial lodging properties.

    Their 36-page "Model To Develop An Emergency Management Visitor Assurance Program," has received international distribution over the last year. It was funded by the American Hotel Foundation and Division of Emergency Management of the Florida Department of Community Affairs.

    Through the study, they determined there were insufficient shelters capable of withstanding hurricanes in Florida--not good news. But their report included suggestions for lodging facilities to help evacuate visitors and avoid panic that can ensue following announcement of an impending storm.

    In a way, associate professor Dr. Jane Boyd Ohlin instructs students and the industry on how to avoid storms completely. The man-made kind, that is. Ohlin, also an attorney, studies sexual harassment or discrimination in the workplace.

    "Almost all of my research is concerned with legal trends affecting the hospitality industry from an employment standpoint," says Ohlin. "What I’m trying to do is keep litigation from happening. My goal is to get employers to abide by policies that are legally appropriate. That way employers don’t get sued and employees don’t get harassed."

    Unfortunately, the pace has accelerated in her field in the last year. The U.S. Supreme Court handed down two cases which will help define how sexual harassment is handled in the workplace.

    "Both were handed down the same day," she says. "They make employers take much more responsibility to prevent sexual harassment in the workplace." The clincher is that employers can be held responsible for sexual harassment, even if the conduct never comes to the attention of corporate officials.

    It’s making a lot of employers nervous, she says, as anyone with employees is affected. The reason the hospitality industry, especially, must pay attention is because it is so labor intensive and students, who are 21 years old when they graduate, might be managing a staff of 20 employees. "It’s imperative we make them aware of these issues early," she says.

Industry dictates coursework

    Part of the department's research tracks employment trends in the industry. Two programs were developed in recent years to respond to those trends: Golf management (see related article) and senior services, which emphasizes retirement home management. Both are now career options for hospitality majors, who also can get trained in resort and condominium management and management information systems.
 
    Ohlin was the first to note the rise in the number of available jobs in retirement home administration. "We’re finding more recruiters wanting to interview students than the number of students we have available," she says.

    The department started a course concentration in senior service management three years ago. Besides hospitality majors, it has drawn majors in social work.

    "The only hard part is getting 20-year-old students fired up about managing a retirement home," she says. She tries to explain that it’s different from the typical hospitality position because it offers day-time hours, five-day work weeks, good pay and attractive benefit packages as opposed to working weekends and holidays, getting off at one a.m. and having variable pay.

    Still, she says, sometimes students have to get a taste of what the world of hotel management offers before recognizing the value. "What tends to happen is that students go to work for a big hotel chain, before they really consider it."

Looking over their shoulder

    So how does FSU’s Department of Hospitality Administration stack up against other hospitality programs?

    West says that Cornell University's program is the one by which all others are measured. But few can compare. Cornell’s was the first of its kind, boasts 60 faculty, 600 students and over $60 million in its foundation. That’s 10 times the faculty and more than four times the students in FSU’s program. And it’s better funded than Florida State’s entire foundation.

    West prefers to look at those more closely mirroring his program, like Michigan State. In 1997, a Virginia Tech study of 250 hospitality programs ranked Michigan State No. 3 and FSU No. 5. The ranking is significant for a Tallahassee program that has only six faculty and 140 majors.

    "For FSU, that’s substantial, considering that in 1993 (the last time the survey was done) we weren’t even ranked." Like FSU, Michigan State’s program is in the College of Business.

    Closer to home, two other schools with hospitality administration programs are Florida International University and the University of Central Florida, and both are much larger than FSU's. The most comprehensive program is based at FIU, which has its own School of Hospitality with about 600 undergraduates, 200 graduates and 33 faculty. Central Florida's program has 250 majors and 13 faculty.

Jobs for a Booming Florida Market

    But in this job market, apparently size doesn't matter. On average, graduating FSU seniors interviewing for management positionsin the hospitality industry receive an average of four to five firm offers each, says Bonn. The average starting salaries for FSU’s graduates range from $28,000 for lodging and management to nearly $38,000 for food service management, he said.

    In spite of having over 300 hospitality and tourism management programs spread around the country, Bonn says that during strong periods of economic vitality, the nation's hospitality and tourism industries have a difficult time finding enough graduates to meet industry demands.

    And the benefits start at home, he says.

    "Florida is the No. 1 tourist destination in the U.S. Other destinations compete with us. There are destinations trying to steal away our visitors right now."

    Recent studies show that Florida's tourism industry is stronger than ever. Tourist arrivals in the Sunshine State increased in 1998 by 3.4 percent over 1997--to 48.7 million visitors. The '97 statistics were five percent higher than 1996. Airline profits continue to climb, the cruise industry is strong and five of Florida’s theme parks are among the top 10 grossers worldwide.

    Last year, the U.S. lodging industry broke all records with a $20 billion net profit, he says. The 1998 figures were 18 percent higher than 1997, and while this year isn’t expected to be a record breaker, it is expected to exceed 10 percent.