Hotel And Catering Supervision

The book I read to research this post was Hotel And Catering Supervision by Ken Gale which is a very good book which I bought from a car boot sale. This book was published in 1984 and is a guide to the various BTEC & City & Guilds examinations in Hotel & Catering Management. The most interesting part of the book is the history of hotels which I will write about. First I'll look at some of the problems facing this profession. First of all most hotels are quite small and certainly don't have any union membership in general. Generally things like wage rises are negotiated between the employee and their boss. Often people in these professions are poorly paid and often have to live in on the job. This means it is difficult to work out how much is being spent on their accommodation and food etc and also if they lose there job they have to find somewhere to live. Many supervisors aren't given management training in a cost saving measure although they should and many come up through the ranks and are ill prepared for what to expect.

The first hotels were built in Roman times and after that hotels largely disappeared although monasteries would provide accommodation. Hotels then started to flourish in the 11th century when it became fashionable to go on pilgrimages to places like Canterbury & the Holy Land. Much of this accommodation was provided by monasteries. In the 17th century stagecoaches where they had way stations where a fresh set of horses could continue a trip where the others left off became popular and around this hotels were especially built in places like Edinburgh & London. In the late 18th century with the advent of the railways spa towns like Cheltenham & seaside resorts like Brighton became popular. Early hotels were very luxurious and expensive. Gradually holiday camps started to be built and nowadays we have a situation where it is often cheaper to holiday abroad than in this country. One of the biggest recent developments has been low cost airlines that often get a subsidy from where they fly to and pass this on to the customer. I did enjoy reading this book and believe it or not it was only 20 p to buy. It is probably a bit dated but interesting.