An investigation of African American enrollment in the Lester E. Kabacoff School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Administration

Abstract

The rhythmic Jazz music, spicy Creole cuisine, eclectic architecture, Mardi Gras and the bohemian "party" population combine to create a unique "melting pot" culture and beautiful city. Although the population of New Orleans consists of persons from virtually every ethnicity the city proper is 66 percent African American. The uniqueness of New Orleans beckons people from all parts of the world to visit and as a result makes it a huge tourism destination with 35,000 (and growing) hotel rooms. The lodging industry, as with most hospitality service businesses, is labor intensive and requires an inordinately large number of front-line employees. In New Orleans African Americans occupy the majority of front-line positions, however, as tourism and the lodging industry continue to expand and dominate the economy of New Orleans, it is apparent that the city's largest population segment, is underrepresented within the highest levels of management in the lodging industry. Nevertheless, African Americans are choosing to prepare themselves for upper management careers in other industries as opposed to the lodging industry. The primary objective of the research was to investigate the serious and perplexing challenge of recruiting African American students by the Lester E. Kabacoff School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Administration at the University of New Orleans. To this end, the study has revealed that the recruiting deficit of African American students experienced by the Lester E. Kabacoff School of Hotel, Restaurant, and Tourism Administration as being generated by the school, the lodging industry, and possibly an innate bias of the local African American community towards the service industries. Furthermore, the study has revealed that the short comings and challenges experienced in areas of leadership, change and diversity by the New Orleans lodging industry are not unique or limited to the New Orleans area but pervasive throughout the lodging industry. In addition to identifying a possible bias toward the service industry within the African American community and report shortcomings of both the School and the lodging industry as contributors to the recruiting deficit of African American students at the Lester E. Kabacoff School of Hotel, Restaurant and Tourism Administration; the study proposes strategies that could be implemented to: (a) increase African American enrollment in the school; (b) augment the number of upper managerial positions held by African Americans; and (c) ultimately change the observation of the African American community that the lodging industry is not openly inviting, ripe with opportunity, and a worth career path to pursue.