Hotels and hospitality industry depend on complex networks for their everyday functions. They entertain several guests everyday and need reliable networks to enable instant service for their guest. The hospitality industry completely depends on communication for their functions, and to provide services for their guests. For example, every room needs a phone, television, and also the internet to be in working condition, and here we are talking about hundreds of rooms.

The hospitality organizations need a person to be present constantly on site, and to sort all these things out when there is a problem, and they also need a person to set up the communications system for them. Every hotel works with a team of communication engineers, whom they employ to be in house. A communications engineer may work at different times and sometimes may also work at night. They should be available on call at all times and in case of emergencies.

Setting up good communications that are efficient and secure can be quite challenging, and a responsible job that a person needs to execute within a certain time period. There are two kinds of communications, the tele-communications and the wireless or LAN communication networks. It is preferred by the hotel industry that the communications engineer have knowledge of both types of communications. The person along with the engineering degree should also carry a certification in computer networking.

Education

The communications engineer job in the hotel industry, one needs to be an engineer in electronics or electrical. Along with this, a certification in computer networking is also required to get a job. An electrical engineer would know how to set up complicated networks and handle the wiring on a large scale, because they study throughout their course about the wires and circuits. Also, it is easier for them to learn about computer networks as an additional course, as all the students follow that route anyway. An engineering degree takes four years to complete and get certification.

To get a job in the engineering industry the person’s portfolio should show excellent project status and good scores throughout their academic years. Well, this is not required by the hotel industry, as the communications engineer should do their jobs and most of their work on methods which have already been established. They do not have to make any new technologies or improvise the existing technology. Some of them may not find it challenging after they’ve worked so hard for their degrees.

However, the hospitality industry does match it up with good pay packets, as it is difficult in this industry to get engineers to work for them. Many hotels, because of the lack of engineers, give the project of setting up networks to an external communications company who also take up the maintenance tasks and all the communication network responsibilities. This kind of deal has its own advantages and disadvantages. It is not the same as having a communications engineer as an employee in the hotel.

Education required

Bachelor of engineering in Electronics or mechanical or electrical
Microsoft certified networking course or equivalent

Skills

The communications engineer should have an exceptionally good knowledge about networks and computers. He or she should be able to work under pressure and deliver the results. They should be able to set up large wireless networks without any problems, and also provide access and user ids. For this, they should have a good knowledge about the network software and have good network administrative skills.

The person should have an eye for detail, and should be able to catch the glitches in the networks in order to rectify them. In the hotel or hospitality industry, because of the size of the networks, there is likely to be a problem almost every single day.

A network executive or communications engineer should be prepared for this at all times, and be willing to rectify the problem whenever called. This is not an independent role, and most organizations will have a team of communications engineers. Not all responsibilities are given to one single person, and typically a communications engineer will either be handling the software or the hardware side of the network.

Expected Salary:

The expected salary depends on the size of the network. Typically the five star hotels have much larger networks that are LAN and WAN than the smaller three star or two star hotels.
Beginner: $3000
Mid Level: $5000
Experts: $6500 or more