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The hotel slippers, the mint on your pillow, the freshly-made room when you step back in after a day on the town — these are all perks provided by customer-focused hotel managers. With $18.8-billion in national accommodation revenue, 8,356 properties and 378,000 employees reported in 2008 by the Hotel Association of Canada, a career path in hotel management is certainly an exciting choice.

Hotel management is actually a broad term that encompasses a number of career options, including: hotel and restaurant general management, human resources management, sales and marketing management, convention services or tour coordination, and cruise line management. Overall, each area has one central theme: customer service. However, there are also unique skill sets that must be employed by hotel managers depending on their specialized career route.

If you are working as a front-desk manager, you must be a quick thinker who can charm guests at the same time. Besides the doorman, you are the first face a customer sees, sometimes after a long trip. It is your duty to ensure guests are quickly checked-in and guided into their freshly made rooms. Speaking of freshly made rooms, it is the job of the housekeeping manager to ensure that the staff is properly looking after the cleanliness and hygiene of the hotel. No one wants to check into a room and find a hair on his or her pillow! Therefore, it is the job of the housekeeping manager to pay attention to the fine details that make the difference. After a guest is checked in, he or she may wander down to the restaurant of the hotel. This is where Restaurant and Service management comes in. This team is responsible for ensuring that food is top quality, tableware is sparking, furniture is perfectly comfortable and clean and that customers continue coming back. Therefore, they must be organized and possess leadership qualities.

However, before a customer even sets foot in a hotel, it is the sales and marketing managers who are involved in tactics to ensure that the hotel name is respected and recognizable. These professionals require innovative thinking skills and creativity. Another part of the marketing equation is the Human Resources hotel manager, who not only has a hand in hiring staff to properly run the hotel but also in managing the press, relations with the community and other such administrative tasks.

The Hotel, Resort and Restaurant Management program at Centennial College is designed to teach you the skills you need to specialize in any of the areas in this field. Covered by the training at Centennial are skills such as: finance, human resources, labour and international relations, oenology, leadership and entrepreneurship, security and risk, service quality, marketing and revenue management. Although the program is quite short (1 year/ 2 semesters), it is intense and imparts solid knowledge for graduates whom have obtained jobs at well-known properties such as Delta Chelsea and Fairmont Hotels.

In order to take part in this quick-paced graduate certificate program, applicants must submit an official transcript demonstrating proof of successful completion of a post-secondary diploma or degree program. Centennial College will consider applicants presenting a combination of partial post secondary education and relevant work experience, open to all disciplines. A resume review may also be required to set you on a hotel management career path.