Why Formal Education Now Determines Who Thrives in the Experience Economy
- Raffles Jakarta
- Jul 22
- 5 min read
The global tourism and hospitality industry is now experiencing a structural change that few would have predicted a decade ago. International tourism has not simply recovered from the disruptions of the early 2020s; it has been reconstituted around new logics of the consumer, new distribution channels, and new expectations of the professionals who operate within it.
The UN World Tourism Organization has routinely recorded the sector’s return to and growth beyond pre-pandemic levels in arrivals, while the World Travel & Tourism Council estimates that travel and tourism account for around one in ten jobs globally (UN Tourism, 2024; World Travel & Tourism Council, 2024).
This transformation has a particularly strong impact on Indonesia, especially Jakarta. The capital is at once a gateway city, a MICE (meetings, incentives, conferences, and exhibitions) hub of regional importance, and the administrative center of a national tourism strategy that considers the sector a pillar of economic diversification.
However, the expansion of the sector has revealed an ongoing gap: demand for professionally trained hospitality managers is still outstripping supply. This article discusses the reasons formal tourism and hospitality education has become a critical competitive variable, what contemporary industry patterns require of graduates, and where potential students in the Indonesian capital may receive this education.
The Experience Economy and the New Hospitality Professional
Scholars have long claimed that advanced economies are shifting from selling services to staging experiences (Pine & Gilmore, 2019). Nowhere is this thesis more evident than in the hospitality industry. The modern guest doesn’t buy a room; they buy a narrative that starts long before check-in on a smartphone screen and continues long after departure via shared content. This shift has major implications for the labor market.
Operational competence, front office procedures, food and beverage service, and housekeeping standards are still required but now insufficient. Increasingly, employers want graduates to be able to manage the business but also understand revenue management, digital marketing, data analysis, sustainability governance, and cross-cultural communication.
The industry now hires managers of experience systems, not just service providers. The primary institutions capable of producing such professionals at scale are formal degree programs that combine internships, industry certification, and management theory.
A Trend Worth Taking Seriously: The "Hidden Gem" Hook and the TikTok-ification of Demand
Short-form video is a serious business and no serious analysis of contemporary hospitality can ignore it. “TikTok has emerged as one of the leading discovery engines for travel, and the dynamics of TikTok are changing demand in ways that hotel and destination managers now need to anticipate, not just react to.” Industry analysts note that a single viral video can turn a boutique property into an overnight success, or overwhelm an unprepared operation with demand it cannot meet (The Digital Hotelier, 2025; Cloudbeds, 2026).
A practical tip that’s trending now among travel creators & every hospitality student should know: the so-called “hidden gem” hook. Today’s creators open videos with a bold, counterintuitive claim in the first two seconds (“This $30 room looks like a five-star resort”) instead of cinematic establishing shots, because today’s algorithms reward immediate surprise over slow aesthetics (Viryze, 2026). The lesson for hospitality managers is twofold.
First, properties must build in at least one truly surprising, “share-worthy” moment in the guest journey—a signature amenity, a view, or a ritual—because that moment is the marketing asset. Second, managers need to build operational elasticity, since virality creates spikes in demand that punish rigid staffing and inventory models.
This is exactly the kind of competency that our Tourism and Hospitality Management program at Raffles Jakarta is designed to tackle head-on: students learn not just how to run a property but how to manage its digital demand signals from social media strategy and reputation management to revenue forecasting under volatile, algorithm-driven demand.
Where Can One Study Tourism and Hospitality Management in Jakarta?
One of the more common questions prospective students ask is deceptively simple: where can I study tourism and hospitality management in Jakarta? The answer warrants a structured response, considering that the capital city boasts one of the highest concentrations of hospitality education in Southeast Asia. Jakarta has several types of provider. Within this landscape, Raffles Jakarta positions its Tourism and Hospitality Management program around three differentiators:
a curriculum aligned with international competency standards and updated annually against industry trends such as digital distribution and sustainable operations;
structured internship placements with partner hotels, airlines, and event organisers in the Jakarta metropolitan area; and
a faculty that combines academic credentials with active industry practice.
For students seeking to enter the sector at a managerial rather than purely operational level, this combination of theory, immersion, and network access is the decisive consideration when comparing programs in the capital.
The Indonesian Context: Policy Tailwinds and Talent Shortfalls
The national tourism strategy of Indonesia generates sustained demand for qualified managers by developing priority destinations, positioning quality tourism, and expanding MICE capacity. Jakarta has a unique role, with the capital dominating business travel, aviation connectivity, and corporate hospitality, while leisure flows are concentrated in Bali and the designated priority destinations.
Graduates who are familiar with both the leisure and corporate segments and who can work in bilingual and multicultural environments have strong employment prospects not only within the country but also throughout the ASEAN labor market, where mutual recognition arrangements for tourism professionals facilitate movement across borders (ASEAN Secretariat, 2013).
But the talent shortage is real. Industry bodies regularly report difficulty in finding supervisory and managerial candidates with both the technical certification and management education. This gap is the strongest argument for pursuing a structured degree: the market lacks workers and managers.
Conclusion
The hospitality industry of 2026 rewards a unique hybrid: professionals who are operationally rigorous, digitally fluent, and strategically literate. The "hidden gem" hook in brief video trends shows how quickly demand-generation logic is changing and why improvisation can't replace education. Jakarta offers many institutions for students in the Indonesian capital who are looking for such an education. Raffles Jakarta’s Tourism and Hospitality Management program creates the kind of managers the transformed industry needs.
The question is not if the industry will grow but who will be qualified to lead it.
Arman Poureisa
Marketing Head
References
ASEAN Secretariat. (2013). ASEAN Mutual Recognition Arrangement oforTourism Professionals. ASEAN Secretariat. https://asean.org
Airbnb. (2026, January). 2026 travel predictions revealed. Airbnb Newsroom. https://news.airbnb.com/2026-travel-predictions-revealed/
Cloudbeds. (2026). TikTok for hotels: 9 best practices and examples to inspire in 2026. https://www.cloudbeds.com/hotel-marketing/tiktok/
Pine, B. J., II, & Gilmore, J. H. (2019). The experience economy: Competing for customer time, attention, and money (Rev. ed.). Harvard Business Review Press.
The Digital Hotelier. (2025). The TikTok effect: How viral travel trends are reshaping hospitality. https://thedigitalhotelier.com/the-tiktok-effect-how-viral-travel-trends-reshaping-hospitality/
UN Tourism. (2024). World Tourism Barometer. United Nations World Tourism Organization. https://www.unwto.org
Viryze. (2026). Travel TikTok trends 2026: Destinations & content going viral. https://viryze.com/blog/tiktok-travel-trends-2026
World Travel & Tourism Council. (2024). Travel & Tourism Economic Impact Research. https://wttc.org
