Challenges and Solutions in Hospitality Internships

This assignment examines the experiences of students undertaking work integrated learning (WIL) in the hospitality industry, specifically focusing on a front office internship at Waiwo Dive Resort. It outlines common problems faced by interns, such as managing tasks, language barriers, and understanding customer inquiries. The assignment then proposes solutions for these challenges, emphasizing effective communication, work management skills, active participation, and self-reliance. Ultimately, it highlights the importance of WIL in providing practical experience and preparing students for successful careers in hospitality.

Running Head: Hotel & Hospitality Management
Hotel & Hospitality Management

Hotel & Hospitality Management 1
Contents
Work integrated learning.................................................................................................................1
Problems faced by students.........................................................................................................1
Resolution of the problems..........................................................................................................2
References........................................................................................................................................4

Hotel & Hospitality Management 2
Work integrated learning
Work integrated learning refers to as an internship program taken by many students who want to
feel the real-life experiences. In simple words, this is the program which makes a student
understand the real-life professional experiences (Ferns, Campbell, and Zegwaard, 2014). Work
integrated learning is an academic subject which gives an opportunity to the students to learn in
the workplace. It is highly demanded by an international student in the city like Australia
because they want to gain the knowledge and experience so that they can get the best
opportunity. This method of making students aware of the professional work life is used by many
universities across the world (Brink, Mearns, and Du Plessis, 2014). Talking about my recent
placement at Waiwo Dive Resort as a Front office staff shows the difficulties that might be faced
by the student while completing the internship program. The Waiwo Dive Resort is included in
the hospitality industry where a student takes the experience.
Problems faced by students
 Being in the front office, the students might face the problem in managing the assign
task, the task assigned to the front office employees in resort is to represent the resort in
front of the customers, registration of guest and answering the enquires in regards to the
resort, maintaining the reservation and the vacancies (Andrews, 2013).
 Weak language skills are one of the most emerging problems which are faced by many of
the international students. In the front line job, the students deal with this issue and this
issue can create an impact on the working.

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 The students might face the issue of understanding the query of the customer in regards
to the resort, this might create the problem in resolving the query and lead to lack of
customer satisfaction.
 The students might face the lack of training and the information sharing system from the
university as well from the resort side. The lack of details in regards to the work from the
resort manager will lead to the difficulties for the students. This might create the problem
for the students who are taking the experience of the workplace.
Resolution of the problems
The students can easily overcome the difficulties while learning the experience at Waiwo Dive
Resort. The students who are looking to work in the hospitality industry need to make sure that
there motive is customer delight which can be achieved by delivering the effective services. The
front office employees are the one who is the first interaction point, so it is just to make sure that
their staffs are not facing any problems.
 Communication- The students who are working front office work they should know the
way of communication, instead of using any regional language they can use the English
language (Jackson, 2015). To work on language skills they can take different sessions on
soft skills or either they can participate in the conversation which helps them in
improving the communication skills of the students.
 Effective work- Managing the assigned task is becoming an issue for the student because
they are new to this work, as time pass on they can easily manage the task on their own.
The students just have to do their work effectively so that they became familiar with the
work as soon as possible.

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 Learning through participation- Lack of understanding the customer is a very crucial
problem it not only creates an impact on the working of the student but also impacts the
business on the profitability, revenue and the goodwill of the business. The students
should use the theory of the learning through participation. Considering the theory, the
student should interact with more and more customer so that they can easily understand
the needs of the customer in regards to the resort (Cason, and Samek, 2015). This will not
only enhance the learning of the students but also enhance their experience in the front
office job which will open numerous doors for them.
 Self-reliance/self-training- in case the students are not getting the appropriate training in
regards to the work, they should try to learn the things on their own. This is the basic
motive behind the work integrated learning, through this can make the student learning
their work own by seeing other employees working there on same profile (Boud, 2013).
These few are the resolution which will help the student in enhancing the experience through
learning. The implementation of the some of the resolution will resolve the problem of the
students and they can easily learn and enhance their future opportunities.

Hotel & Hospitality Management 5
References
Andrews, S., 2013. Hotel front office: A training manual. Tata McGraw-Hill Education.
Boud, D., 2013. Enhancing learning through self-assessment. Routledge.
Brink, R., Mearns, M. and Du Plessis, T., 2014. Managing information for work-integrated
learning at higher education institutions. Mousaion, 32(3), pp.13-28.
Cason, T.N. and Samek, A., 2015. Learning through passive participation in asset market
bubbles. Journal of the Economic Science Association, 1(2), pp.170-181.
Ferns, S., Campbell, M. and Zegwaard, K.E., 2014. Work integrated learning.
Jackson, D., 2015. Employability skill development in work-integrated learning: Barriers and
best practice. Studies in Higher Education, 40(2), pp.350-367.