Page 172 - Hospitality Horizon Oct-Nov 2025_FLIP FINAL ISSUE

plainspeak

Past forward and the future of hospitality talent in India

By Kunal Vasudeva, Co-Founder & MD, ISH

he country is moving from an investment advisors and industry leaders worked together. Telecom
story to a consumption story. Hotels, reforms cleared the way. Digital infrastructure came in.
restaurants, delivery kitchens, cafes, clubs, Skilling missions followed. Policy, capital and education
event venues, travel brands and luxury started to move in the same direction.
experiences are multiplying in every city. Someone sat with a clear brief and asked a simple
THospitality sits at the centre of this. question. What kind of capability does India need to build
Yet the way we think about hospitality talent still
belongs to another time. For many decades, we have
treated hospitality education as a narrow stream. We
linked it almost entirely to hotel operations. We saw it as a
skills track that feeds entry level roles. We built
regulations, curriculum and attitudes around that idea.
I call this a past forward mindset. We keep pulling the
past into the future, even when the future is asking for
something very different.
When India wanted technology capability to scale, the
country did something very different. Government,

“WE STAND IN THE FUTURE AND ASK
WHAT KIND OF LEADERS INDIA WILL
NEED WHEN THE COUNTRY BECOMES
ONE OF THE LARGEST HOSPITALITY AND
TOURISM MARKETS IN THE WORLD. WE
THEN DESIGN EDUCATION BACKWARD
FROM THAT POINT.”