Meet the Instructor: Corrado D’Urso

AIHM thrives by attracting a student body filled with the most passionate aspiring hoteliers from around the world. We provide an intimate learning environment where students work closely with faculty who share their intense passion.

Such amazing students deserve the best lecturers the globe has to offer. AIHM’s Meet the Instructor series introduces you to women and men who guide our students on their journeys to success.

Corrado D’Urso, Lecturer in Hospitality Management at AIHM

Corrado D’Urso is a global citizen. With degrees from Italy and the United Kingdom and a career that’s spanned Europe and Asia, he understands firsthand the dynamics of marketing to a global audience. After honing his skills in marketing and sales in the UK, he made his first big career transition to Thailand. Working in Thailand as a business education specialist, he managed training programmes at leading international colleges while forging and managing partnerships with prestigious institutes such as the London School of Economics.

Photo credit: https://www.theguardian.com/education/2009/may/10/universityguide-london-school-economics-political-science

In 2022, he returned to Europe, relocating to Milan to accept a senior coordinating role at Ernst & Young where he was able to continue his passion for education, working on high-level training projects in management and e-learning with Italian government ministries, universities and European Union agencies.

Photo credit: https://www.britannica.com/place/Milan-Italy

Having returned Thailand to join AIHM’s faculty in 2024, he brings his far-reaching teaching expertise to marketing courses and other special topics within the BBA degree programme as well as supervising the independent projects of professionals who seek to advance in their careers through AIHM’s management certificate programmes.

Learn more about his passion for teaching and mentorship below.

Q&A with Corrado D’Urso

What essential skills or attributes do you believe are crucial for students to succeed in the hospitality sector today?

To succeed in the hospitality sector—as well as in many other fields—students and professionals need to develop an array of essential hard and soft skills.

Hard skills may be related to one’s chosen area of work, for instance in the kitchen or front office. Then there are soft skills and competencies that can be considered more cross-cutting, that can be applied to a variety of job sectors and roles. These cross-functional soft skills are extremely useful in today’s ever-changing professional environment. To name a few of these important soft skills:

• Critical Thinking – This vital skill is the ability to look at things (e.g., processes, service delivery, products, etc.) from various viewpoints and to evaluate strengths and weaknesses, to assess and identify possible areas for improvement. It’s the ability to look beyond the status quo and challenge the way things have conventionally been done.
• Problem Solving – Another crucial skill for today’s professionals, problem solving is the ability to identify possible realistic solutions to a problem and to select the best one.
• Adaptability – This professional skill refers to possessing the flexibility to handle change and adapt to new situations. Often, the secret to adaptability is being able to react to unexpected circumstances and overcome them with innovative ideas and approaches.

Students in all AIHM programmes develop a beneficial mix of hard and soft skills. They build a collection of professional competencies they can apply to success in any industry—as well as in-depth industry-specific knowledge about hospitality management.

Looking into the future, how do you see the field of hospitality management evolving? How does education play a role in this transformation?

Today’s customers have changing needs, wants and demands. Direct and indirect competitors offer a vast choice of varying products and services. At the same time, macro factors (i.e., political, economic, social, technological, environmental, legal, etc.) impact the sector in constantly changing ways. The world is changing more quickly than ever before, and the hospitality industry has to rapidly evolve with it. The factors I just mentioned only hint at the numerous ways the hospitality environment is changing and will continue to change.

Professionals at all levels who want to stay up-to-date or who want to deepen their core competencies may want to look at how education can support their development. Education isn’t something limited to the period before you embark on your career. It’s the key to lifelong career success. Institutions like AIHM can support students at all levels and career stages in identifying areas for potential personal and professional growth. AIHM’s faculty and team members work with students to help them create concrete plans to achieve their career goals. The Institute provides a learning environment that offers professional trainers who support students in their personalised needs. It also offers a great selection of up-to-date courses that are developed to meet today’s academic and professional needs.

On top of this, AIHM provides a peer community that includes a mix of cultures, backgrounds, age groups and professional experience. In addition to learning from experienced and expert faculty, AIHM students learn with and from each other.

What four adjectives you would use to describe your teaching style?

1. Approachable – I aim to be available whenever students need me. I’m always on their side.
2. Flexible – I take pride in being able to adapt to new cohorts, styles, individual needs and preferences. (As mentioned, adaptability is one of today’s most important soft skills, and I strive to model this for the students with whom I work.)
3. Motivated – Motivation is contagious. People feel inspired when they’re around others who are motivated and inspired. To me, motivating students throughout their journeys, including through both ups and downs, stands out as an essential part of my teaching philosophy and practice.
4. Practical – It’s important to me to offer students opportunities to try out what we discuss in the classroom in terms of theoretical knowledge. I want to provide a learning environment where students can bridge the theoretical and practical, where students can make mistakes, where they can reflect on how to improve, and where they can exchange ideas respectfully and constructively.

This is a teaching approach that I have developed after years of study and work-practice in both the academic and corporate sectors. Embracing these qualities above, I hope to continue developing to meet the needs and requirements of new programmes and new students.

What inspires you both professionally and personally?

I am constantly inspired by other people’s approaches, ideas and practices. I know that there are always new things I can learn. I love finding inspiration in the new and diverse ways other people are succeeding.

I believe strongly in the value of education and the life-changing benefits educational institutions can give to students and professionals—including in terms of staying relevant. I also very much appreciate seeing students developing over time and achieving their personal, professional and academic goals.

Personally and professionally, I like being part of a community. This allows me to engage in constructive conversations with professionals and individuals who have a wide range of experiences, expertise in a variety of sectors and a valuable diversity of perspectives. I find inspiration in learning from other faculty, non-teaching professionals, and most importantly, students and their viewpoints.

Why do you teach?

Because it gives me the opportunity to be in a learning environment where opinions and ideas around a topic can be shared, discussed and possibly tested. I love working in an environment where doubts, questions and concerns can all be addressed safely and where I get to interact with diverse groups of people who have common objectives: learning new things and moving upwards in their careers. 

I also enjoy being exposed to new ideas and experiencing how different students may come up with different ideas and way forwards on given problems and tasks.

Finally, this job offers me the opportunity to experiment with diverse approaches so that I’m always evolving and discovering new methods to help students learn. Currently, I’m exploring how student-run podcasts can be integrated into a course, and I look forward to seeing how that goes.

Meet AIHM’s Hospitality Management Experts

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