What you mentioned above are mostly for service staffs. I'm not too sure regarding their pay but you know, they get a lot of tips especially when they meet with generous guests. In coffee house (from experience) they share the tips. All the tips given by customers are placed in a 'basket' and at the end of the shift, it will be divided among themselves. In one day each person could rake in between RM 10-25 (or more) and they hardly get anything less.

If you work extra time, you get OT too.

And for those who work in Room Service, it's even better. You don't have to share the tips! If you bring the food up, the tip belongs to you. Same goes with concierge and housekeeping. When housekeepers bring ironed clothes or help with cleaning services, some guests leave them with generous tips.

There is no definite answer to questions like these. It depends on many factors.

First of all, what prompt you to take Hotel and Tourism? Interest? Which portion are you most interested in? Do more research on them.

In H&T, it is somewhat expected that the graduate work in either industry. Assuming you work in a hotel - which department do you suppose you will apply for? There's Front Office, Concierge, Housekeeping, F&B (coffee house, Chinese restaurant, Japanese restaurant, bar, room service etc), Sales, Marketing etc

In Hotel line, everyone starts low. Even though you may be a Degree holder, you will still need to service customers. For example you enter F&B. You are expected to work as a waiter (perhaps rotated between coffee house, japanese & chinese restaurants etc) for at least 2-3 years before being promoted (that also depends on performance and vacancy).

Same goes with other departments. It is necessary to understand the basic operations before moving up.

On another note, if you work in an international chain like Hilton, JWW Marriott, Sheraton, Shangri La etc chances of climbing up to General Manager or Director position someday is pretty low. Reason being these Directors are from the Group itself, sent over all around the world by their HQ. Usually every 5years they will bring in a new Director from another country.

Tourism is alright I guess but what sort of position are you looking into? Is your cousin choosy about it? When you opt to work for a travel agency, you will also need to start from below. It could be sales, admin, ticketing, tour guide, marketing etc and then slowly move up to business development positions (if that's in your field of interest). Usually these agencies are opened as SMEs and are pretty limited unless your cousin join Reliance Group with branches around and all.

I have to say, when I pick up the course it was because I had profound interest in it. But during the course it kinda became boring... and then when internship comes, it was all hell and no play. Realized I didn't like service line and took a different course in my Degree. I would not say I wasted money in my Diploma because I learnt and experienced many different things.

On another note, turning it into full time job - that would not be my choice.

Yeah the hotel that I had training - was a 5 star hotel. The GM and his family occupies one of the top floors (and I mean, whole floor - not just 1 or 2 rooms). He dines and wines in the hotel, under company expenses and has a chauffeur. Whenever his wife wanted to cook, all she needs is to ask the kitchen to bring some ingredients up (she don't even need to go to the market!)... there's also housekeeping to keep their place clean and do their laundry. How convenient is that?!


+1. Couldn't agree better.

The pay is low, extremely long working hours and you'll have to put up with customer tantrums/ complaints. Thus most of them are right, one really needs much passion to pull through the harshness of the industry.

When I was placed in FO, there was this customer from the States who made a complaint. There were several things that made his stay unpleasant and he's a VIP guest. What I liked was that - when the manager offers to give him a discount and some complimentary vouchers, he declined and said, "I am complaining to you because I want you to know what went wrong. I'm not interested in any sort of relief that you offer me, I only want to notify you that these problems happened."

Boy, wasn't I impressed. Malaysians usually complaint because they wanted some sort of compensation in return.

Different for everyone. Although you earn more overseas, your expenses is also higher there (eg. rental, food, entertainment etc). You need to be frugal to save money.

There are those with family locally and wouldn't want to work in foreign land. Plus, if you plan to go either Australia, US, UK etc your English better be fluent.

Yes, we have the advantage of speaking and understanding several languages yet if one can't speak well in English (again, if the choice of country is mainly English-speaking) where most of the guests are indeed English speaking, there is a chance they will only hire this person as a back-up or will not hire at all ^^;

Hmmmm must say here that this guy sounded professional. However... from another POV, he may be earning peanut salary but he enjoys what he's doing and he's comfortable with it. His pay is more than enough for him to carry on and he isn't complaining

Working in the restaurant, he may be getting generous tips (especially in fine dining and where you served the customers well) as side income. It's not as peanut as you may thought sometimes

[quote=superdeemon,Feb 2 2011, 10:26 AM]
newbies here to this interesting topic of discussion & point sharing. Basically, what are the perks being normally offered in the hotelier line besides getting a basic paid? any mobile phone or car maintenance allowances etc.?

[/quote]

Depends on position. If you work in service line where 100% of your time is inside the hotel, why would you need mobile or car allowance?

As for sales position then yes, there'll be travel allowance (petrol). Again, it depends. If it's conference/ banquet sales then you don't really need to travel much because most of the arrangement is done in the hotel. In fact your customers are the one travelling to look for you in order to visit the venue and confirm settings etc.

The perks? Lunch for staffs at the cafetaria are usually FOC. Sometimes dine-in at the hotel under company charge etc. Hard to say exactly what are the perks, highly dependent on department, position and the hotel chain.

[quote=leo_gaga,Feb 2 2011, 07:50 PM]
[quote=sweet_pez,Mar 9 2010, 09:07 AM]
Yes, we have the advantage of speaking and understanding several languages yet if one can't speak well in English (again, if the choice of country is mainly English-speaking) where most of the guests are indeed English speaking, there is a chance they will only hire this person as a back-up or will not hire at all ^^;
Hmmmm must say here that this guy sounded professional. However... from another POV, he may be earning peanut salary but he enjoys what he's doing and he's comfortable with it. His pay is more than enough for him to carry on and he isn't complaining

I remember my senior told me, one language has extra certain allowance.. ie: 500 or 1000? but nt sure..

From my personal opinion.. working in hotel is not easy.

[/quote]

Honestly I have no idea about language allowance. It's the first time I hear of something like this...