For young people weighing up their options in international higher education today, the question is rarely straightforward. It is no longer simply: where and what do I wish to study? It has become, with increasing urgency: will this qualification still carry weight in five or 10 years’ time?
That uncertainty is not unfounded.
International students have long faced shifting conditions, from changes in visa rules and entry requirements to rising course cost and fluctuating post-study work opportunities.
They have shown a remarkable capacity to adapt, recalibrating plans and ambitions as circumstances change. But they now face a new decision: whether international education still offers the clearest route to future opportunity and a long-term return on investment.
Artificial intelligence is reconfiguring industries at a pace that few institutions have been able to match. Entire professional categories are evolving faster than curricula can be revised. Graduates are entering a labour market that prizes adaptability as much as expertise, and in which many once-reliable career trajectories now appear rather less certain than they did.
A legitimate question that families investing in international education are increasingly asking is whether the role a student aspires to today will still exist by the time they graduate.
Against that backdrop, one sector is quietly demonstrating a resilience that has surprised many observers: hospitality.
Not because it stands apart from technological change, quite the contrary. Artificial intelligence, automation and data-driven personalisation are already reshaping hotels, restaurants, tourism operations and luxury brands with considerable speed. But the more digital our world becomes, the more conspicuously valuable human capability proves to be.
That is precisely the territory in which hospitality education has made itself indispensable.
Traditionally, institutions of this kind prepared graduates for careers in hotel and restaurant management. Today, their remit is considerably broader. Employers across luxury retail, private aviation, wealth management, real estate, live events and customer experience strategy are drawing with increasing regularity from hospitality graduate pools because these candidates combine commercial rigour with something in shorter supply: emotional intelligence, cultural fluency, leadership presence and sophisticated communication.
The more digital our world becomes, the more conspicuously valuable human capability proves to be
These are no longer classified as soft skills. They have become strategic ones.
The sector itself faces a substantial structural challenge. According to the World Travel and Tourism Council, the industry could confront a shortfall of 8.6 million workers by 2035. At management level, the deficit is becoming more acute still, as organisations search for leaders capable of navigating sustainability pressures, accelerating digital transformation and an increasingly discerning consumer base.
Education sits at the centre of that challenge.
Today’s students are not seeking learning environments that feel disconnected from professional reality. They expect education that is applied, internationally oriented and demonstrably linked to career opportunity. They are drawn to mobility, to purpose, and to experiences that build genuine confidence alongside academic formation.
Hospitality education has long understood that balance – and, in many respects, has understood it better than most sectors.
The strongest institutions in this field integrate business education with immersive operational exposure, enabling students to learn within real professional environments rather than through theory alone. Applied learning, international exchange and structured industry placements are woven into the student experience from the outset, not appended as optional extras.
Hospitality education should not be mistaken for a narrow vocational track. At its best, it covers the full architecture of business, finance, marketing, operations, strategy, entrepreneurship and leadership – but teaches it through one of the world’s most dynamic and exacting industries. More than a hospitality degree, it is an applied business education, grounded in real environments where service, judgement, commercial discipline and human insight must work together every day.
The outcomes reflect this approach.
Les Roches reports a 94% employability rate among its graduates. Glion reports that 98% of its graduates are employed within three months of completing their studies — many having received multiple offers before sitting their final assessments.
But graduate employment figures, compelling as they are, do not capture the full picture.
For international students and their families, the calculus of return on investment extends considerably further than starting salary. International education must deliver what cannot be easily replicated at home: access to a genuinely global professional network, cross-border career pathways, and the cultural intelligence and leadership presence that distinguish candidates in competitive markets worldwide.
At Glion and Les Roches, students from over 100 nationalities learn alongside one another, completing industry placements across multiple countries before graduation. Their combined alumni network of almost 35,000 graduates, active across over 160 countries, represents a form of career infrastructure that compounds in value throughout a working life.
What makes hospitality education of growing relevance is its capacity to prepare graduates for an economy built upon experience, relationship and adaptive intelligence. In an environment where automation can manage an expanding share of transactional activity, human connection becomes the distinguishing variable — and a considerable competitive asset.
That principle extends well beyond the hotel sector. Approximately half of Glion and Les Roches hospitality graduates move into entrepreneurship, luxury retail, wellness, management consulting, real estate or experience strategy. Employers have understood for some time that technical systems can be taught on the job. Empathy, resilience, cross-cultural agility and the capacity to lead. These qualities are considerably harder to develop once a career is already established.
The future of higher education will not belong to institutions that simply transmit information. That commodity is abundant. What will distinguish the institutions that matter are those equipping students with resilience, global fluency, entrepreneurial judgement and the capacity to adapt throughout a career, not merely at its outset.
Hospitality education — perhaps unexpectedly to those unfamiliar with how far the discipline has evolved — may already offer one of the more compelling models for what that future requires.
For students confronting an unpredictable world and wondering how best to prepare for it, that is a rather more reassuring proposition than most areas of higher education can currently offer. For those making the considerable investment that international study represents and whose families are asking hard questions about value, relevance and future opportunity, it may be the most strategically sound answer available.
About the author: Spencer Coles is chief executive officer of Sommet Education, the global leader in hospitality, luxury and culinary arts education, whose institutions include Glion Institute of Higher Education (ranked no. 3 globally, QS 2026) and Les Roches (ranked no. 2 globally, QS 2026), alongside École Ducasse, Indian School of Hospitality and Invictus Education. Spencer brings over 25 years of leadership experience in international private higher education. He previously served as CEO of Mander Portman Woodward and as Chief Operating Officer at Regent’s University London. He joined Sommet Education in February 2026.
