Books for hotel industry

Thursday, January 22, 2009

Mumbai: Sudhir Andrews, Dean - Ecole Hoteliere Lavasa, Lavasa Corporation Ltd, will release two books authored by him within the next two months; ‘Human Resources for the Hospitality Industry’, a first of its kind book, will launch in first week of February 2009 and ‘Hospitality Sales and Marketing’, another first, will be released by first week of March 2009. The publisher for both books is McGraw-Hill Education (India) Pvt Ltd.

Apart from hotel management students, hospitality professionals at the junior and middle management levels can refer to these books. Speaking exclusively to Hospitality Biz, Andrews said, “The books will give the students first hand knowledge of what really happens in the real world. In order to illustrate concepts, the books have examples of what hotels and restaurants have done. The books are built around hotel management schools’ syllabi and therefore, are ideal for college examinations.”

Explaining why he wrote the book, Andrews said, “There are no books on these topics by an Indian author. Students have to refer to foreign books at great cost and these have no relevance to Indian conditions. Indian books are general and not uniquely addressed to the hospitality industry. I have experiences in corporate HR (Oberoi, WelcomGroup and Metropolitan), training and development, sales and marketing, hospitality education, consultancy and authorship. I have been able to bring these various experiences together in these books at an affordable price.”

'Human Resources in the Hospitality Industry' will include topics like HR knowledge, tools and procedures required to run a modern hospitality HR operation, such as manpower planning, recruitment and selection, performance management, career planning, compensation and benefits, employee relations, organisation behaviour, HR information systems and HR best practices.

'Hospitality Sales & Marketing' will address the differences between selling services and physical products; actual products and services provided in hospitality; branding; unique distribution systems in hospitality; hospitality sales, promotion, advertising and public relations; the importance of people as a marketing proposition and marketing strategies.

It took Andrews around six months to write each book after years of research. With three decades of experience in the hospitality industry, Andrews has written seven hospitality book extensively used by students and professionals.