My career didn’t start in a training room. It started in a kitchen. As a management trainee in Food Production, our only “crisis drill” was the lunch rush. Tickets piling up. Equipment overheating. A chef calling timings like a conductor. I learnt early that you don’t rise to the level of your training; you fall to the level of your preparation. As a Food Production lecturer, I saw another truth. Students who knew every technique would still freeze the first time a sauce redu

When COVID hit, hospitality and cruising didn’t just shut down. They were exposed. Every beautifully choreographed training room, every polished workshop, every “high-engagement” session—we suddenly saw how dependent we were on the room, not the learning. And the moment those rooms disappeared, the illusion disappeared with them. Trainers who built their style on energy, theatrics, and crowd dynamics had to face a brutal question: If you remove the performance, does the learn

There’s a truth most people in L&D won’t admit out loud: The session that gets the loudest applause usually creates the least behaviour change. I learned this the long way, from land to Maldives, across the stillness of the Inner Alaska Passage, through the mental-health fog of Covid, and back to ships again. The Maldives taught me that learning doesn’t happen in the classroom. It happens when a butler keeps his composure with a difficult guest at 11 pm. It happens when a new

When I took charge of the vessel, the timing couldn’t have been tougher. A USPH inspection was on the horizon, and brand auditors from shoreside were scheduled to board on the next voyage. Crew morale was low. Pressure was high. The galley was deep-cleaning, housekeeping was sanitizing every inch, and guest services was firefighting mid-sailing. There was no room, or time, for a traditional classroom session. So, I did what ship life had trained me to do, adapt fast, and make

During my early cruising years, sailing through the Inside Passage in Alaska, I once delivered a session I thought had gone perfectly. Slides crisp. Timing flawless. Every activity in place. By the next day, no one remembered much. That evening, at the crew bar, watching glaciers drift past the porthole, a cabin steward turned to me and said, “Kketan, your sessions are good. But they don’t sound like us.” I hadn’t expected that. But I needed it. I had delivered the training —

In hospitality, the real “make or break” moment isn’t the five-course dinner or the spa treatment. It’s the first ten seconds....

Ever stepped into a 5‑star suite as a learner? Roleplay in luxury training blurs the line between classroom and real life. Drawing on...

In today’s hyper-connected world, AI can turbocharge our training—but without empathy, it’s just noise. After 25+ years in hospitality...

Let me be real for a moment. After 20+ years in L&D, most of it in hospitality, I’ve seen the same thing happen too many times: A...