Entrepreneurial Hospitality

Catalog description

Entrepreneurial Hospitality exists at the intersection of the analytical and the creative. This course combines the two by challenging students to identify a market deficiency within the service industry and create a new hypothetical business to fulfill or enhance the guest experience. Students will combine traditional business strategy, along with the methods and mindsets of design thinking, to prototype three parts of a service business – value proposition and offer, revenue model, and sales channel. This course is not for the passive student. Lectures are purposefully kept short, giving students ample time for in-class activities including, primary and secondary market research, trend identification, brainstorming sessions, business model construction, prototyping, customer journey mapping, brand identity creation, forecasting sales, and crafting a final pitch deck. Entrepreneurial Hospitality encourages students to get out of the classroom and co-create the curriculum under the guidance of their instructor, a resident in-class mentor, and a host of industry professionals to take a deep dive into those areas of the service industry which interest them most.