AIHM HIGHER

If you’re reading this post, you may have noticed you’re on the AIHM Higher blog. That’s what we call this little ‘digital press’ you’re on. The AIHM Higher blog is where our community of educators, learners and guest experts share their visions and experiences.

Open any popular news magazine today and you will find articles proclaiming artificial intelligence’s status as a major disruptor of industry. AI is changing the way we work. It’s transforming the market. It’s upending the working processes we’ve used for years, the tools we’ve come to rely on, the speed and efficiency of completing tasks, and the realm of what’s possible—or at the very least, feasible. AI isn’t just impacting the activities of corporate offices though. Those of us in the education sphere are feeling its disruptions at least as equally.

Imagine losing 89% of your customers after a single bad experience. Guess what? You don’t have to merely imagine it. That's the reality. (Customer Experience Impact Report, Oracle) When businesses neglect customer service excellence, the impacts are dire​​. This statistic may sound dramatic at first glance, but think about it for a moment and it makes total sense. Consider your own experience. When you receive bad customer service once, how often do you never go back to that business again?

In January of 2023, Christian Terwiesch—Co-Director of the Mack Institute of Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton Business School—published a fascinating white paper: “Would ChatGPT Get a Wharton MBA?” Terwiesch performed an experiment. He challenged ChatGPT 3 to take the final exam for a sample Wharton MBA course. The results? ChatGPT would have earned a grade of a B to B-.

AI has taken the world by storm—a Category 5 hurricane to be more exact. Only a year and a half ago, in November 2022, ChatGPT launched, offering everyday individuals the chance to explore and utilise the power of artificial intelligence with relative ease. Initially, I was very surprised by this new development, but I assumed it was just an improved version of Siri or Alexa—fascinating and possibly useful, but not necessarily world-shattering. Then I started playing around with it. Very quickly, I could see the potential ChatGPT and similar artificial intelligence tools might have for work and, most importantly, education.

This coming week we welcome a new cohort of students for their very first semester of AIHM’s Bachelor Business Administration in Global Hospitality Management. As always, this is one of my favourite times of the year. If you are one of the new members of our community, I want you to know how special this week is for all of us. Your passion, your vision and your potential to transform the hospitality field inspire us. As we embark on this journey together, I’d like to share with you and our other readers, the ‘why’ behind AIHM, the deeply held beliefs that drive everything we do.

There’s a massive career opportunity hiding in plain sight, and those who know the secret can reap the rewards. Asia’s hospitality business is one of the region’s fastest growing industries. According to the global business intelligence platform Statista, annual hotel revenue in Asia is expected to reach US$ 144 billion in 2023.

Think back to your school days, all the way to the beginning. Which classes were your favourites? When you recall the class activities that made you most excited, what comes to mind? Maybe you loved science classes with hands-on experiments—mixing chemicals in the laboratory to see what the reaction would be or dissecting frogs to discover how all the pieces fit together like a fantastically engineered machine.

Back in the Middle Ages, a book was a rare, priceless object. The art of bookmaking required a team of highly skilled scribes, illuminators and binders. Each book cost a small fortune. Only the wealthiest members of society were able to own books, and even then, the number of books you were able to own or gain access to was limited by practical considerations. As of September 2023, the internet contains 4.3 billion pages of content, accessible to virtually everyone. Those Medieval Europeans would consider today’s wide-sweeping access to knowledge an embarrassment of riches. But knowledge does not equal understanding.

If you find yourself at a crossroads in your professional journey, seeking a path filled with excitement and rewards, let me share a hidden gem with you – the captivating world of hospitality management in Asia and South-East Asia. Regardless of where you are on life's timeline, a career in hospitality management in this region offers remarkable opportunities and a chance to make a real difference.