You will write an essay of 2,500 words on a contemporary trends issue affecting the hospitality industry. Generally, this contemporary trends essay will utilize a minimum of six sources including books, journals and other scholarly articles, not just trade journals and blogs.
The focus of this course is on professional as well as personal development. Therefore, you need to select one topic discussed in class or choose a topic of your own and ask my permission to write about it. The purpose of this essay is to enable you to select a contemporary issue related to the hospitality industry and explore it in depth. Both your topic’s relevance to the current work culture and the effect this trend will have on your career must be discussed.
You must summarise the main points of the topic in general, show insight in the field (i.e. what is it about? how much impact will it have?), and synthesize other’s thoughts (i.e. does researcher X’s opinions differ from researcher Y’s opinion? How is this important?). This will demonstrate to me that you are aware of the issues involved. Show that you can relate ideas to your own professional development.
Assessment Guidance
- Choose contemporary trends presented in class or discuss with me any other issue and how you wish to approach it.
- Make a critical assessment of how this issue relates to you in your professional development and may influence your career.
- There is no table of contents.
- In the paper, you must state how this issue is personally relevant to your future career in the hospitality industry (i.e. when you are in a management position, what will you do and how will you try to change things?).
- Your references should contain a minimum of six references, and at least one academic peer-reviewed journal article (i.e. Journal of Hospitality Research) where someone has discussed this issue before. More academic journal references will ensure a higher mark. Understand what is the DOI number and how it is used.
In the introduction, you must present the trend and explain why it is relevant to the hospitality industry. You should also mention in one or two sentences what the following sections of your paper will discuss. Start with definitions, as I demonstrated in class.
You may use numbered headings alone (no sub-headings) to separate different sections (i.e. 1.0 Introduction; 2.0 Renewable Energy; 3.0 Solar Hot water; 4.0 Personal Reflection; 5.0 Conclusion).Do not use the words ‘Main Body’ as a heading, rather choose something more specific (i.e. ‘LGBT Trends in Europe’).
Answer the Basic Questions: Why, What, How, When and Where
- Why is this trend important?
- What are the drivers of this trend that justify these particular points you discuss?
- Ensure you have clearly set out evidence of how this trend is affecting the hospitality industry.
- You should describe at least one important academic study from a peer-reviewed journal demonstrating when and where this trend is most pronounced, and present what these academics found relating to the trend.
Contemporary Trends Essay: Sources
The majority of the work should be related to the work of others from a variety of sources, including books and research papers. Explore in depth and justify how this impacts the industry.
Personal Reflection Section
Please discuss in one short paragraph before the conclusion how this trend might affect you in your future career. Therefore, this section should have the heading ‘Personal Reflection‘. What will be new or different for you as contemporary trends become more pronounced? What can you do about it? In general, your grade will strongly depend on how you discuss your future career in relation to the trend you chose to write about.
Bibliography
You must have a bibliography at the end of your paper, listing all the references that you mention in the text. In general, ten references are considered a minimum number. Therefore, less than 10 will significantly lower your grade. Be consistent with your bibliography following the Harvard style, with the author’s last name first, then first initial, year, then the title and journal name or book. The list must be in alphabetical order. However, do not use numbering or bullet points in your reference list. Use the Harvard Referencing System, which can be found here. (Look at any published research paper as a formatting model for your own work.) Overall, more references from peer-reviewed journals, such as the Journal of Hospitality and Journal of Tourism Management will influence your grade. You may not use someone else’s BA, Master’s degree thesis or TED talk as an accepted reference.
Tips For Better Writing
- Generally, the tone of academic writing should be: formal, clear, and concise. Therefore, please avoid the 2nd person ‘you’ and the 1st person ‘I’ or ‘we’ in academic writing (only use ‘I’ in your personal reflection section).
- You may use numbered headings to help the reader, in statement form, NOT as questions (do not use the words: how, why, or what). Do not use sub-headings. The same for your title, do not have a question as your title.
- Number your headings i.e.: 1.0 Introduction; 2.0 Solar Energy; 3.0 Personal Reflection; 4.0 Conclusion.
- Do not use colloquial language (i.e. ‘a lot’; ‘really’; ‘like’; or ‘actually’) use instead ‘many’ or ‘similar to’.
- Have a look at this website from Newcastle University on academic writing
- Everyone must use an online grammar checker before you submit such as Grammarly, Grammarcheck, or Ginger grammar. Use of correct grammar will be a significant part of your grade.
- You must have at least one reference from a peer-reviewed journal. However, more references from academic journals will be an advantage. Generally, the reference list must be in Harvard style. One of the best websites for this is Citethisforme.com
Text | List of CT Topic Suggestions
To start with, the following are some contemporary trends ideas that may be used in your coursework. Therefore, please choose one topic from the following ideas.
- Ageing and its effects on hospitality (choose one or two countries)
- Artificial Intelligence
- Bees and Colony Collapse Disorder
- Choice overload problem in the world today and what to do about it
- How education is changing (choose one or two countries)
- Energy for the future, for example solar, wind, batteries
- Farming practices in one or more particular country or countries (including fish, cattle, or chicken)
- Farming and monocultures
- Food contemporary trends – choose one in particular such as slow food, organic food, or food trucks
- Gender equality in a specific country
- LGBT and hospitality (choose two countries and compare)
- Millennials or GenZ and tourism
- Obesity in one or two specific countries
- Payment technology: biometric fingerprint, wearable bracelets, or crypto-assets.
- Peak Oil
- Pesticides and monoculture farming practices
- Population contemporary trends in one or two specific countries
- Sugar in food
- Technology trends-robots, automation
- Water scarcity in a particular country
Generally, above are the topics regarding the contemporary trends you can choose, I highly recommend the topic How Education is changing (choose one or two countries). Therefore, choose two countries and critical analysis and compare. However, it is up to you, choose the topic you are interested and good at!
Overall, please remember any topic have to be linked and related to Hospitality Industry.
Topics to Avoid
- AliPay or ApplePay
- Content Marketing
- Emotional Intelligence (EI)
- Gamification
- Leadership
- Social Media
- Sustainability issues or social responsibility
- WOW customer service
Source: AEssay Team (based on customers’ requests)
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