Executive Programs · Executive Program

Hospitality Leadership & Guest Experience · Executive Program

Design the guest experience, run the operation on numbers, and lead the team that delivers it: a 360-degree path for hospitality professionals, owners and managers.

10 modules30 lessons56 hours12 weeks, self-paced
Enrol nowFree preview: From family shop to experiential enterprise

Who it is for

Hospitality has changed faster in the last decade than in the previous fifty. Guests discover, compare and book on a screen before they ever meet a host; costs and labour markets punish operations that run on intuition; and the difference between a full house and an empty one is increasingly decided by experience, not by product alone. Many excellent operators feel what the source book calls the need for "a new compass".[b360]

This program turns Luca Colucci's book 360-Degree Hospitality into a structured executive path. It keeps the book's core conviction, that hospitality must be managed as one interconnected system, from finance and governance to brand, design, kitchen and bar, people and sustainability, and extends it with established management frameworks and evidence on guest journey and service design, revenue management, retention economics, leadership, business models and growth.[b360]

Who it is for

  • Owners and entrepreneurs of restaurants, bars, cafés, guesthouses and boutique hotels who want to professionalise without losing their soul.
  • General managers, F&B managers, operations managers and department heads preparing for broader responsibility.
  • Consultants, investors and advisors who need a practical, end-to-end view of how hospitality businesses create and capture value.
  • Professionals moving into hospitality from other industries who need the operating logic of the sector quickly.

How it works

Ten modules combine short, dense lessons with a case study, an applied exercise, a checklist, a downloadable template and a quiz. Every module asks you to apply the material to a real business, ideally your own, so that the final project becomes a usable 12-month plan rather than an academic paper. Content drawn from the source book is marked and traceable; additions from other sources are cited with links.

Who it is for

  • Hospitality owners and entrepreneurs (restaurants, bars, cafés, guesthouses, boutique hotels)
  • General managers, F&B managers, operations managers and department heads
  • Hospitality consultants, investors and advisors
  • Professionals entering hospitality from other industries

Problems it solves

  • Good product, stalled growth: the experience around the product is not designed
  • Numbers that feel opaque, budgets that are never revisited, and cash surprises despite profit
  • Friction between kitchen and floor, inconsistent execution and avoidable guest failures
  • Capacity sold without revenue management; menus not engineered for contribution
  • Weak discoverability and reputation management; marketing spend without measurement
  • Guests who do not return, and service recovery left to chance
  • High turnover, unfair schedules and leaders who do instead of coach
  • Growth or innovation decisions taken without a clear business model or readiness check

Competencies you build

Competencies you build

  • Experience strategy and systems thinking
  • Guest journey mapping and service blueprinting
  • Multisensory environment design (flow, light, colour, materials, sound)
  • F&B operations: standard recipes, forecasting, purchasing, beverage programme
  • Financial control, rolling forecasting, governance and risk
  • Revenue management and menu engineering
  • Brand positioning, local search, reputation and measured marketing
  • Retention economics, loyalty design and service recovery
  • Leadership, organisation design, scheduling and talent development
  • Business models, growth strategy, innovation and sustainability

Outcomes

  • A 360-degree baseline of your business with a prioritised improvement path
  • A vital-metrics dashboard and a finance and governance control pack
  • A guest journey map, a service blueprint and a set of service standards
  • An engineered menu, a revenue heat map and three pricing or demand tests
  • A brand one-pager and a compliant discoverability plan
  • A retention engine: CLV, loyalty design, empowerment table and complaint log
  • A people system: decision rights, rhythm, fair-scheduling rules and onboarding plan
  • A three-year growth and impact plan, integrated into a 12-month transformation roadmap

Learning objectives

  • Diagnose a hospitality business as an interconnected system and select the highest-leverage improvement.
  • Design the guest journey end to end, including the backstage processes, peaks and endings that determine what guests remember.
  • Shape the physical environment, flow, light, colour, materials and sound, to support both experience and efficiency.
  • Run F&B operations on standard recipes, forecasts and a managed beverage programme, supported by an integrated technology backbone.
  • Read and steer the business through its financial statements, prime cost, rolling forecasts, scenarios and a governance calendar.
  • Optimise revenue through capacity metrics, menu engineering and ethical demand-based pricing.
  • Position the brand, make it discoverable and measure marketing as an investment.
  • Build retention through lifetime-value thinking, consent-based loyalty and empowered service recovery.
  • Lead teams with psychological safety, clear decision rights, fair scheduling and continuous coaching.
  • Choose business models and growth paths, manage innovation with a human-first test, and make sustainability measurable.

Modules

  1. The Experiential Enterprise: Strategy for 360-Degree Hospitality

    Reframes the hospitality business from a product shop into an experiential enterprise, introduces the five vital metrics that give leaders a balanced view of health, and builds the systems-thinking lens used throughout the program.

  2. Guest Journey and Service Design

    Turns the guest journey from a metaphor into a managed asset: mapping touchpoints across the before, during and after, blueprinting the backstage that makes them work, and deliberately designing the peaks and endings guests remember.

    • Mapping the guest journey30 min
    • Service blueprinting: the backstage that makes the front stage work30 min
    • Designing peaks and endings25 min

  3. The Multisensory Environment: Space, Light and Sound

    Treats the physical environment as part of the product: guest and staff flow, micro-zones and ergonomics; lighting, colour and materials; and the soundscape, with evidence on how music shapes behaviour and practical rules for volume.

    • Space that speaks before words: flow, zones and ergonomics30 min
    • Light, colour and materials30 min
    • Soundscape: music, tempo and volume30 min

  4. Operations and F&B Management: Kitchen, Bar and the Data Backbone

    Covers the operational core of food and beverage: standardised production from seed to plate, smart seasonality, the cloud POS and integrations that form the data backbone, forecast-driven purchasing, and a beverage programme managed for rotation, margin and emotion.

    • Standardised production: from seed to plate30 min
    • The operating backbone: POS, integrations, forecasting and purchasing30 min
    • The beverage programme: rotation, margin, emotion30 min

  5. Financial Control, Governance and Risk

    Gives operators and executives the financial literacy to read the story in their numbers, control prime cost, plan with a rolling forecast and scenarios, and build a governance system for compliance, food safety, data protection, cyber-risk and business continuity.

    • Numbers that tell stories: P&L, balance sheet and prime cost30 min
    • Rolling forecasts, scenarios and cash25 min
    • Compliance, food safety, data and continuity35 min

  6. Revenue Optimisation: Capacity, Menu and Price

    Equips leaders to manage revenue as a system: capacity metrics for restaurants and hotels, the levers that move them, menu engineering to shape mix and margin, and ethical dynamic pricing that shifts demand without eroding trust.

    • Revenue management fundamentals for restaurants and hotels30 min
    • Menu engineering and pricing architecture30 min
    • Ethical dynamic pricing and demand shaping25 min

  7. Brand Positioning, Marketing and Communication

    Builds a brand guests can almost taste, from positioning and identity to hero-centred storytelling, then turns it into discoverability, measured paid media, guest-generated content and responsible use of generative AI.

    • Positioning and identity you can taste30 min
    • Discoverability and reputation: local search and reviews30 min
    • Paid media, guest content and AI-assisted creativity30 min

  8. Customer Retention, Loyalty and Service Recovery

    Makes the business case for retention, designs loyalty programmes that use data with consent and create genuine surprise, and builds the front-line emotional skills and recovery systems that turn failures into trust.

    • The economics of retention25 min
    • Designing data-driven loyalty30 min
    • Emotional intelligence and service recovery30 min

  9. Leadership, Teams and Organisation

    Develops the leader of a hospitality team: culture and psychological safety, leadership styles for service settings, organisation design and management rhythm, fair scheduling, and the talent cycle from employer brand to onboarding, micro-learning and on-the-job coaching.

    • Leading a hospitality team: climate, safety and style30 min
    • Organisation design, management rhythm and fair scheduling30 min
    • Talent: employer brand, onboarding, micro-learning and coaching30 min

  10. Growth Strategy, Business Models, Innovation and Sustainability

    Moves from running one excellent operation to shaping its future: comparing hospitality business models, choosing growth paths and testing replication readiness, managing innovation and technology with a human-first lens, and turning sustainability into a measurable source of resilience and value.

    • Business models in hospitality30 min
    • Growth paths and innovation toward 203030 min
    • Sustainability as strategy: waste, carbon and community30 min

What is included

  • Video-free, reading-first lessons you can follow at your own pace
  • A case study, an exercise and a checklist in every module
  • Downloadable templates for your own work
  • Server-graded quizzes at the end of each module
  • A final project with a rubric
  • A Certificate of Completion issued by Luca Colucci

Time required

About 56 hours over 12 weeks, self-paced.

Access

Online, self-paced, in English. Lessons, cases, templates and quizzes are available on the Academy platform for the duration of your access period; templates are downloadable as Markdown files.

Completion and certificate

Complete all lessons, pass every module quiz, submit the ten module deliverables and the final project. Estimated study time: about 56 hours in total, of which about 15 hours of lessons; the rest is case studies, module exercises, quizzes and the final project. Suggested pace: about one module per week, with two weeks for the final project.

Certificate of Completion issued by Luca Colucci. It attests completion of the program; it is not an academic degree or an official professional qualification and carries no university accreditation.

The Certificate of Completion is issued by Luca Colucci. It is not an academic qualification and is not accredited by a university or a public body.

Price

€690€890

Launch price · until February 1, 2027

Members save 10% (Entry) or 15% (Pro), applied automatically at checkout.

Bundle of the three programs

€1,790€2,190

Launch price · until February 1, 2027

Members save 10% (Entry) or 15% (Pro), applied automatically at checkout.

The Certificate of Completion is issued by Luca Colucci. It is not an academic qualification and is not accredited by a university or a public body.

The book behind the program

Amazon · Luca Colucci ↗

Membership

Executive Programs are sold separately: they are not part of the Entry or Pro membership. Members get a discount.

What each level includes →

Sources