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From running a busy restaurant floor to coordinating hotel departments or executing high-profile events, hospitality managers are the people who keep things running smoothly. Strong leadership in this industry requires not only charm and experience, but also a deep understanding of people, systems, and the numbers behind the scenes.
And with demand rising, leadership skills are more essential than ever. By 2033, 1 in 8 new jobs in the U.S. is expected to be in the leisure and hospitality sector, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. That includes hotels, restaurants, event venues, and more—settings that all rely on strong operational managers.
A Hospitality & Restaurant Operations Management degree from Auguste Escoffier School of Culinary Arts is designed for those ready to grow their careers in the industry. Whether you’re already working in hospitality or looking to pivot into it, this program could help you build the practical skills and business fluency that modern employers are looking for.
In this guide, we’ll explore what the degree covers, who it’s designed for, and where it could take you next.
What Is Escoffier’s Hospitality & Restaurant Operations Management Degree?
Escoffier’s online Associate of Occupational Studies Degree is a 60-week program designed to prepare students for leadership roles in the hospitality industry. The curriculum is built around key areas of hospitality management—ranging from food and beverage operations to budgeting and HR—while also incorporating practical coursework in service, facilities, and technology.
This interdisciplinary approach can equip students with the skills to manage restaurants, hotels, resorts, event spaces, and other hospitality venues. The program can include lessons in cost control, menu design, event logistics, and leadership development, and can lay the foundation for both immediate employment and long-term career growth.
The degree is offered online through Escoffier’s Boulder campus and includes a required hands-on industry externship. Students can attend weekly virtual classes, participate in discussion boards, and submit practical assignments from nearly anywhere with a reliable internet connection.
Who Is This Degree Designed For?
This program is built for individuals who want to move into, or grow within, hospitality leadership. It can be a strong fit for career changers with transferable skills, restaurant workers ready to take on management responsibilities, or entrepreneurs preparing to open their own venues. Whether you’re currently working front-of-house or behind the scenes, this degree could help you hone your skills and expand your knowledge of operations, finances, and people management.
No previous experience in hospitality is required. Students come from all backgrounds, including military service, retail, and general business. What they often share is a desire to lead, manage teams, and create excellent guest experiences.
Chef Instructor Vicki Berger believes the program is especially valuable for those pivoting careers.
“A strong educational background can help someone with limited experience become a valued contributor to the employer,” chef Vicki said. “They can utilize the skills taught at Escoffier to work their way into a management position.”
Online Format, Practical Focus
The HROM program is fully online. Each week, students engage in a structured learning cycle: they study materials and complete knowledge checks, participate in discussions with peers and instructors, and complete assignments that simulate workplace hospitality scenarios.
This flexible format can make it possible to pursue a degree while balancing work or personal responsibilities. The program’s structure supports hands-on learning, with courses that mirror the tasks managers handle every day—whether that’s writing a schedule, analyzing a profit and loss report, or planning a catered event. Students can also benefit from individual instructor feedback, and many choose hands-on industry externships that reflect their long-term career interests.
Online students complete assignments and receive instructor feedback from anywhere.
Curriculum Overview: What the Program Covers
Escoffier’s Hospitality & Restaurant Operations Management (HROM) degree offers a practical, interdisciplinary curriculum that blends restaurant and hospitality management with key business and leadership principles. The program includes 18 courses covering both technical knowledge and people-management skills, helping students prepare for leadership roles across restaurants, hotels, and event venues.
Hospitality Operations & Guest Experience
Core operational courses can teach students to manage the day-to-day functions of hospitality venues:
Facilities Operations and Compliance
This course focuses on the physical space of food and beverage operations. Students learn about local, state, and federal government regulations for food and beverage spaces, emergency plans, and building and equipment maintenance.
Hospitality managers may oversee safe, efficient kitchen and facility operations.
Beverage Service Operations
Students learn how to manage beverage operations in a legal and profitable environment. The course covers laws and regulations regarding beverage operations, as well as budgeting, menu planning, and inventory control.
Catering and Event Operations
Students learn the procedures for preparing events to client specifications, with an emphasis on organizing and planning. This includes creating project plans, forecasting needs, and strategies for coordinating multiple departments.
Details matter. From beverages to timing, catering logistics are key to smooth event execution.
Operations Technology and Innovation
This course focuses on automation using hospitality technologies. Students discuss the pros and cons of automating various tasks and the money-saving capabilities of various technologies, with an emphasis on information management.
Business Fundamentals for Hospitality Managers
Financial and business courses provide the analytical skills needed for management roles:
Foodservice Math & Accounting
This course introduces students to managerial accounting concepts and their applications within the hospitality industry. After covering fundamentals of culinary math, students explore basic business accounting transactions including asset/liability accounts, ledgers, balance sheets, payroll and financial statements.
Cost Control
This course focuses on the financial side of restaurant operations: managing inventory, creating sales forecasts, and managing food and labor costs. Students learn how to respond to real-world scenarios to minimize costs and maximize profits.
Purchasing
Students learn procedures and strategies for purchasing, receiving, and storing to ensure a smooth, efficient, and sanitary experience of inventory management.
Menu Design and Management
In this course, students explore menus as both communication and financial tools. Students learn about topics like menu planning, visual design, and pricing analysis.
Building Your Own Business
This course covers business planning, pricing, credit management, government regulation, legal concerns, and business ethics. For the final project, students complete and present a business plan for a food service operation.
Smart purchasing and menu design begin with understanding your expenses.
People Management & Communication
Leadership and interpersonal skills can be developed through courses focused on managing teams and building relationships:
Foundations in Human Resources
This course teaches students to look at careers through a human resources lens, covering the employee ‘life cycle’: recruiting, onboarding and training, compensation, and performance evaluation.
Leadership and Development
This course prepares students for leadership roles, teaching how to effectively motivate and coach employees on an individual basis, as well as how to plan and drive organizational change.
Business and Professional Communications
Students learn effective professional communication behaviors within business and organizational contexts, including presentation skills, conflict resolution, cultural differences in communication, and debate techniques.
Introduction to Psychology in the Workplace
Students study the scientific process and learn to explain psychological phenomena, focusing on how to practically apply psychology ideas in workplace settings.
Professionalism and Service Standards
Students learn the basics of professional conduct, developing understanding of hygiene, guest service, and communication standards to act professionally in any industry or situation.
Supporting Coursework
Additional courses can provide foundational knowledge and practical experience:
Culinary Foundations I
This course begins with food safety and sanitation in the professional kitchen, including proper hygiene, food handling, and storage. Students become acquainted with professional kitchen tools and equipment, fundamental knife skills, and basic cooking techniques.
The Science of Nutrition
Students investigate basic principles of nutrition, with emphasis on nutrients, food sources, and their utilization in the body for growth and health throughout life.
World History and Culture from the Culinary Perspective
This course examines the role of food and its influence over history, culture, religion, economics, and politics, exploring food customs and attitudes as well as social awareness of food patterns.
Externship
Students gain real-life experience in an operational restaurant or related business, applying skills learned in coursework to real-world situations while developing industry contacts.
Instructor Insight
“Our program addresses how to provide your customers with an outstanding hospitality experience, how to manage employees in various roles throughout the operation, and how to manage the profitability of the establishment.” — Chef Vicki Berger, Hospitality & Restaurant Operations Management Instructor
Skills You Can Develop
Some hospitality skills come with time and experience, but a focused program could help you build them more quickly and with broader context. Escoffier’s Hospitality & Restaurant Operations Management degree could support growth in key areas like:
Leadership & Decision-Making
Managing people and services often means making fast, informed decisions. Students explore different leadership approaches and discover how to coach team members, delegate tasks, and plan for both daily operations and longer-term improvements.
Operational Problem-Solving
In hospitality settings, challenges come up regularly. Through coursework and real-world scenarios, you can explore how to identify issues, analyze root causes, and recommend solutions that balance guest needs, team capacity, and budget constraints.
Chef Instructor Ashley Godfrey emphasizes how vital this skill is at the property level, especially for hotel managers.
“The Front Desk is the catch-all for complaints at a hotel,” she said, “so managers must be able to problem solve quickly. [In our program] students can learn guest service techniques on how to deal with complaints throughout their classes.”
Effective Communication Across Teams and Guests
Students examine both professional and interpersonal communication skills. Topics include giving feedback, resolving conflict, and presenting ideas clearly across departments and to guests from diverse backgrounds.
Financial Fluency for Hospitality Settings
The curriculum introduces basic accounting, budgeting, and cost control in a foodservice context. You can learn to read financial reports, manage purchasing, and make pricing decisions with an eye toward both service quality and profitability.
“Our students are taught the financial aspects of running a successful hospitality operation. Being able to apply this knowledge in the workplace can make them valued employees,” Berger said.
3 Skills Hotel Employers Value—and How You Can Build Them
1. Leadership
Effective hotel managers guide teams, model professionalism, and make high-stakes decisions. Escoffier’s HROM program includes structured leadership training, plus industry projects that simulate management challenges.
2. Communication
Strong verbal and non-verbal communication is key, from delegating tasks to resolving guest complaints. Coursework explores how to communicate across departments, manage conflict, and adapt communication styles to different audiences.
3. Operational & Financial Knowledge
Behind every smooth operation is a manager who understands systems, costs, and logistics. This business-side fluency—budgeting, forecasting, cost control—is a major focus in Escoffier’s curriculum, and a priority for hotel employers.
Skills in Action: Hands-On Industry Externship Experience
Escoffier’s online Hospitality & Restaurant Operations Management degree includes a six-week hands-on industry externship, which serves as an opportunity to put your coursework into practice in a real hospitality setting.
You choose the location based on your career interests, whether that’s a hotel, restaurant, resort, catering company, or other foodservice venue. Career Services staff can help you identify potential options, prepare your resume, and practice for interviews.
During the externship, you can gain hands-on industry experience while developing contacts. This time in the field can help students test-drive potential career paths and build confidence applying what they’ve studied.
*Information may not reflect every student’s experience. Results and outcomes may be based on several factors, such as geographical region or previous experience.
Where This Degree Could Take You
A degree in Hospitality & Restaurant Operations Management can prepare students for leadership roles across foodservice, lodging, and event settings. Here are some examples:
Hotel and Resort Management
Lodging managers oversee operations at hotels, resorts, or similar establishments. They’re responsible for staff coordination, guest services, profitability, and regulatory compliance. This role often involves unpredictable hours, including weekends and holidays.
Key insights from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (as of Sept. 2025):
- Median Salary (2024): $68,130
- Job Growth (2024–34): 3%
Quick Stat: How Do Hotel Managers Train?
- 11% entered the field with a high school diploma
- 18% hold an associate degree
- 57% have a bachelor’s degree
(Source: Hotel Manager Demographics and Statistics in the US – 2025, Oysterlink)
Restaurant Management
Restaurant or food service managers run day-to-day operations in restaurants, cafeterias, and other dining venues. They manage teams, monitor inventory and purchasing, oversee budgets, and maintain service standards.
Key insights from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (as of Sept. 2025):
- Median Salary (2024): $65,310
- Job Growth (2024–34): 6% (Faster than average)
Event Planner
Event planners coordinate logistics for weddings, conferences, galas, and more. Many work independently or with event venues, catering companies, or resorts. A background in hospitality operations can help planners juggle budgets, staffing, and vendor coordination.
Key insights from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (as of Sept. 2025):
- Median Salary (2024): $59,440
- Job Growth (2024–34): 5% (Faster than average)
General and Operations Management
These managers oversee daily operations and long-term strategy, often across multiple locations or departments. In foodservice, that might mean managing a chain of restaurants or leading operations for a hospitality group. Key skills include team leadership, budget oversight, and cross-department coordination. While many grow into this role through experience, a business-focused degree may accelerate the path.
Key insights from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (as of Sept. 2025):
- Median Salary (Restaurant Industry): $71,570/year
- Job Growth: Not broken out for hospitality, but steady across sectors
Do You Really Need a Degree to Lead in Hospitality?
Not necessarily. Many professionals work their way up in restaurants or hotels through hands-on experience alone. But for those seeking to accelerate their path, a degree in Hospitality and Restaurant Operations Management (HROM) could offer some distinct advantages.
When a Degree in HROM Might Make Sense:
You want to fast-track into leadership. Instead of spending years learning through trial and error, a degree program can expose you to industry best practices in finance, operations, and people management early on.
You’re pivoting into hospitality from another field. If you don’t have restaurant or hotel experience, this degree could help you build foundational skills and credibility.
You eventually want to own or operate your own business. Coursework in cost control, compliance, marketing, and business planning can lay the groundwork for future entrepreneurship.
Is This Program Right For You?
Many hospitality professionals advance through hands-on experience, learning leadership skills while managing real operations. Formal education can offer a structured alternative, providing frameworks for financial management, human resources, and operations planning before you encounter these challenges in practice.
A degree program can be particularly valuable for career changers without industry experience or entrepreneurs planning to open their own establishments. The combination of coursework and externship allows you to test knowledge in real-world settings while building industry contacts.
Whether this approach fits your situation depends on your current experience, career timeline, and preferred learning style. If you’re ready to explore your leadership potential, Escoffier’s Hospitality & Restaurant Operations Management program might be the next step.
