The Future of Hospitality Training: Why Knowledge Isn’t Enough Anymore

Alison Magee-Barker is the Founder of ImmersiV XP, an immersive behavioural learning platform that combines virtual reality, AI and realistic workplace scenarios to help hospitality businesses recruit better, onboard faster, build confident teams and deliver consistently exceptional guest experiences.

Rather than simply delivering training, ImmersiV XP allows employees to practise real-life workplace situations in a safe, engaging environment where they can learn from their decisions before facing them in the real world. The platform helps improve leadership capability, customer service, sales performance, confidence, employee engagement, retention and operational consistency.

In this episode, Alison shares why traditional hospitality training is no longer enough, what inspired her to create ImmersiV XP, and how immersive learning is helping hospitality businesses tackle some of the industry’s biggest challenges – from recruitment and onboarding to leadership development, retention and creating high-performing teams.

Alison is also the Founder and CEO of AJ Lakes Consultancy and AJ Lakes Training Academy Ltd, an award-winning consultancy, coaching and training business that helps hospitality leaders and businesses achieve exceptional commercial results while creating greater freedom, profitability and long-term sustainability.

With more than 35 years of hospitality leadership experience, Alison has worked across every level of the industry, from frontline operations to Hotel General Manager, leading businesses through economic challenges, industry disruption and transformational growth. She has coached and trained hundreds of hospitality business owners, managers and teams across the UK and is passionate about making hospitality a career of choice once again.

In this conversation, Alison shares practical insights into the future of hospitality, exploring how AI, immersive learning and behavioural change are reshaping recruitment, training, leadership and guest experience. She challenges leaders to rethink how they develop their people and explains why investing in human potential, supported by the right technology, will be one of the biggest competitive advantages for hospitality businesses over the next decade.

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Good morning and welcome to Fifty Shades of Hospitality. This is Crystal Cavan, your host. Today we are happy to welcome Alison McGee Barker. Alison, it's a pleasure to have you on our podcast today. Can you tell our listeners a little bit about yourself?

SPEAKER_00 0:24

Yes, of course, and thank you for having me, Crystal. I'm Alison McGee Barker, as Crystal's just mentioned. I have spent over three decades in hospitality working in all departments originally from the age of 13. And then running hotels, managing hotels as a hotel GM since the age of 21. And I hung up my keys in 2017 after writing and directing a short film called Celebrating Beatrix Potter, because I used to be the hotel general manager of the hotel that was once owned by Beatrix Potter. Then later that year I ran the whole sales and marketing campaign for the whole of Cumbria in the UK. For we'd we'd been hit quite badly with Stone Desmond, and we'd had some negative media coverage. So I helped 57 hoteliers and attractions to have a great sales and marketing winter campaign that actually then helped us to have one of the best winters we'd had in quite some time. So I hung up my keys after doing all that and knowing that I wanted to help more, to do more, and to be more, and I started AJLX Consultancy, well known for adding six figures onto every business within six months. Then in COVID, I I created AJLX Training Academy, which is now a virtual reality training experience with Immersive XP that I created to help and support businesses, business owners, teams, and managers to live their best lives. So we've got great missions. But I'm also a wife, a daughter, and of course, what most importantly, a mum.

SPEAKER_01 2:13

So, Ellison, can you tell our listeners a little bit more about how did you get into hospitality? You said you started at 13, that's very, very young. How and why did you choose the hospitality field?

SPEAKER_00 2:25

So my grandmother was the most amazing kook, and nowadays you would call her a great pastry chef. But at the time, she was a school kook. She she sadly lost her husband very young, and she brought up three children on her own. And she she was an amazing baker, she taught me everything that there was. So I had a love and a passion for food, and and obviously I enjoyed eating what she she made as well. But she was a big influence in my life, having helped and looked after as well as my parents had their own business. So that's what I think originally got me into hospitality. But at the age of 13, I wanted a part-time job, I wanted my own money, and I I went to a local outside catering business, which nowadays you're not allowed to do, but we used to be put in the back of a van, taken to massive sportsmen's dinners and masons does, etc. 200 and odd people, and then we'd get out of this van and go and serve with our white gloves, pennies, and uh black um outfits on and and serve 200 people and then get back in the van, go and clean all the dishes, curry, cuttlery and glassware, and then then we'd earn our money. And and I loved it. I loved being with people, but I love cooking. So originally I wanted to be a chef. I wanted to find out what was the other side of that wall and what guests really thought, and that's when I went to front of house and worked in all departments and really enjoyed finding out what made hospitality tick. But I think the difference in what we do in hospitality in any other industry is there is no two days the same. I've always said that throughout my whole career.

SPEAKER_01 4:21

Yeah, that is true. So we met for the first time a few weeks ago in Lausanne, in Uchi to be exact. It was your first time visiting Switzerland, and you were over here to attend a symposium, a conference at EHL, Ecole Hotelier de Lausanne, which is of course a very prestigious hospitality management school. Can you explain to our listeners why you were here attending this uh conference?

SPEAKER_00 4:46

Yes, so there's a couple of reasons. And initially, um I believe I believe we're put in the right place at the right time. And we had just set Immersive XP, which is our virtual reality training experience, live on the app stalls. And I met a gentleman over in the UK in the local area. I'd I'd got a frozen shoulder and it was giving me quite some pain and and I was struggling with it. And I met this guy, I was I was told by a client to go and see him, and I met him and I was talking all about it. He said, What do you do for a living? So I told him and told him about my passion and and I'd met another guy at an event who said you must go to Switzerland, you really must. And I said, I've always wanted to go to EHL, it's it's been a lifelong dream of mine, uh, but never had the opportunity. And the gentleman, Alan, Alan Brindley, who was fixing my shoulder, he said, My daughter is the PA to the dean of EHL. I couldn't believe it. Honestly. Incredible. And she was coming over at Easter, so I met her, showed her immersive XP, and she said she would do her best to try and um get me an appointment or get me face-to-face an audience with people who could have a look at immersive, but whilst I was there, would I be interested in attending the Human X Summit at EHL and I and looking at the summit details, looking at all of the agenda, it looked incredible. Talking about AI, I'm very into AI and I have been for a number of years. And to be fair, AI's been around for decades. We used to use it, you know, number plate recognition as what wines certain guests would like, etc. That's all artificial intelligence. Uh, but I've been training my AI agents for quite some time, having worked uh with some amazing people in San Francisco. Um, so it's it all happened with serendipity, and then I met somebody else through an introduction who then introduced me to you. And I was so very, very grateful, and and even more grateful that you were in Switzerland and you were near to where I was actually staying. So it was so I was so blessed and so so incredibly grateful to it to finally meet you in person.

SPEAKER_01 7:17

So let's talk a little bit about your entrepreneurial adventure, AJ Lakes Training Academy. What inspired you to create this immersive approach to hospitality training?

SPEAKER_00 7:29

Yeah, so initially, the reason I started AJ Lake's Training Academy was because I offered my services as a consultant and coach as AJ Lakes Consultancy in COVID, free of charge to all businesses in hospitality in our area. Thinking it would only last a couple of weeks, however, it lasted obviously a lot longer. And it financially crippled me. Did learn at the time is a lot of people who were really struggling on those phone calls that I was helping. There was a lot of areas that I could actually train and develop, having spent over three decades in the industry. And because I worked for privately owned properties, I always created everything myself. So we had no templates given to us, etc. It was all created and it had to be easy to implement because we are busy people in our industry. So what happened at that time, I I knew I needed to create something that would make a difference. And my my brain is very results focused. So I like to see what difference it's going to make. And whilst I was also doing that, I was having lockdown lessons with my children. My daughter was playing Roblox on my phone, and she said, Mum, look at this. I've I've just got the highest score. And when I looked, she was running a pizza restaurant at nine years old. And I said, Give that here, you know, like this this can't be real that you can run a pizza restaurant at nine years old. And she gave me the phone, I had a go at it, and what I saw was, my goodness, we've got yield management, we've got revenue per square meter. She she was doing all of that in this game. And I thought, wow, the one thing we are missing in our industry right now is we're missing real scenarios being delivered to help people fail safely and help people get immersive results. You know, I used to train people on role-playing, etc., but people are so busy now and short-staffed recruitment, et cetera, retention's quite difficult. Um, and we're expecting, you know, people who are untrained to deal with guest complaints, man, manual issues in operations, having difficult conversations with staff, having, you know, we we're great at promoting people. If someone's really good as a waiter or waitress, we say, you're amazing. You should be the food and beverage manager, or the head waiter, or the restaurant manager, without training all of the basic elements that helps to build confidence and help them to feel comfortable in uncomfortable actions. So for me, I wanted to bring a gamified element because watching my daughter running this pizza restaurant, I thought we could do this and attract our next generation to come into our industry. Because I'm very passionate about making our industry a leading career choice in the UK. So that's where the immersive XP, which was originally called AJ Late's VIP, because I didn't know what to call it. And I wanted to wanted to really share the passion and the purpose of what we're amazing at in hospitality is being great with people. And I wanted to help and support every individual in our industry to live their best lives.

SPEAKER_01 10:53

Now, you know, I'm sure that a lot of people have had some kind of contact with this kind of technology, but for people who may not know about this kind of technology, can you explain a little bit more about what the technology is and what it does and help our listeners to imagine what this training and this immersive XP is all about? Yes, of course.

SPEAKER_00 11:17

So for me, it's very important that we give everybody access to it. So initially, it's live on the app stores now, but initially I was looking for something that wasn't with the big headsets that you get, you know, the MetaQuest or the Oculus, etc. It had to be something that you could use on your own mobile phone. So many people in our industry do that now. We've all got our phones, we all use our phones a lot. So it's on the app store, you download it, and then you log in, you've got a 14-day trial. The training gives you the ability to actually go into a real-life scenario. So, our first scenario that we ever built was something that happens every day in our industry. Guests check in early, they check in at 10 o'clock in the morning, you fully boot, you check out at 11 o'clock, nobody's checked out, and they want to get ready for a wedding, and you've nowhere to put them, what do you do? And this is crisis management, it's customer service, it's it's a number of things that we're, you know, managing guest expectations, managing our operations. It's it's firefighting in its best degree. But it but it's helping and supporting. So we you're given options, how do you deal with it? But for me, it's really important that we have our um eye contact assessment. So we're testing all the soft skills at the same time whilst in the scenario. So it's it's how you respond to the guests. It has triggered quite a few people in the industry when they've been trialing it because of past experiences, but it's teaching you how to handle these situations safely in a in a very safe environment uh with your head set on. But the beauty is, is everything that you do in there, you then get the coaching and scoring against the AA standards. Um, and and on top of that, you also get to watch it back. So we've had some people who are quite abrupt in you know, in certain areas of their lives, and they probably responded not as kindly as they could have done. And what they've found is they've changed their behaviour when they they train with immerses. So it's it's exciting, and there's a leadership scoreboard there because we like a bit of competition in our industry.

SPEAKER_01 13:50

So the people that are using this incredible technology are getting actually immediate feedback.

SPEAKER_00 13:56

Yeah, they get immediate feedback. So they they go through the scenario, they then watch the playback, but there's reports as well and top tips, they're given top tips of remember the guest use use of guest name, number, you know, to be more polite. And if you if you actually use this sentence with the guests, that would have a better uh effect. So they can see all that and the coaching elements are on the playback, but then they can go and check further and deeper in the in the reports with different top tips that they can use in different scenarios. So they can watch the playback before they try the scenario again to get a better score. They're given the best scores, the current scores, and the first score. So it shows the improvements, the politeness scores, it shows it shows them so many results that you can't do that in role play in or traditional training. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:55

And what has the feedback been since you've uh you know started this this training and the immersive? What are people saying about training in this way?

SPEAKER_00 15:04

So they get it that it's um it's real, it's practical, it's really easy to use. What I've omitted to say is it's only six minute modules max. You can actually do them in two or three minutes. So it's really quick and easy. The biggest feedback, the biggest shot was wow, I feel more confident now to deal with that situation that's been troubling me for quite some time. That if that happens, how do I deal with it? Um, some say that it actually makes sense for why the guests get upset sometimes. So if they've got some bad trip advisor or Google reviews or trust pilot reviews, they now see why. Um, I've had a few people who say I thought it was more polite than how I come across when I watched the play bath. So it's been an eye-opener. One one that really struck me recently was a GM who was very busy in her her office before she met me for coffee to showcase immersive. And she had a member of her team come into the office, knock on the door, and she said, I was really busy, Alison. I was really busy and trying to finish the email. I knew I was having uh a conversation, going to be working with you. And she didn't turn around and look at them. And she said, It's really made me think about how important ICAT is.

SPEAKER_01 16:34

Yeah, and of course, that's one of the great things about the immersive uh XP is that you have this whole part of it that's all about the eyes and eye contact. And that's yeah, that's really fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 16:46

I I've actually been challenged about that too. Really? Yeah. Yeah. So it's quite this is quite the fun bit where, well, what how can I look at the guest when I'm I'm busy trying to look at all the the responses? And I said, and I say every single time if you go into check on a computer about the booking, you're not going to stay and just focus on that computer. You're going to turn back to the guests, aren't you? Yeah, yeah. And that's what it's teaching you to do.

SPEAKER_01 17:18

Exactly. That's the truth. I think when you were describing it to me in Lausanne, it was really the uh aspect of this technology that struck me, the eye contact, because that is so important. Let's let's talk a little bit about training. How have you seen training evolve over the past five, ten years?

SPEAKER_00 17:38

Yes, it's been quite interesting. Online courses and workshops are still quite prevalent in today's training. You know, we we watch someone else and we copy, but the three three elements still are the same. I I see, I hear, I do. I find hospitality being such a hands-on industry, people need to practice every day. They need to practice regularly. And you don't see that a lot in our industry, you don't see that a lot a lot around the world. The training is evolving quite considerably uh and uh and has done over the years. I know in COVID times, in pandemic, um, the training and education industry went through the roof. I'd only wish I'd been a lot faster with technical development and knowing what I know now to make it a lot faster. I would uh I'd be in a completely different place uh than I am. But it it has evolved, but it's not it's evolved in our industry as I'd like to think it would be. You see surgeons using virtual reality to learn how to um you see the oil industry, the construction industry, you see all different industries evolving, and and we are we are getting it in our industry now, but it's taking time and and for me it needs to be more interactive, especially our next generation of have grown up on interaction with devices, and and the one thing that we definitely need is more personal and more connected to real life rather than being told what to do. I think I think we need to change how we train, how we develop, how we educate. And I think I think you know, to see the difference. So when when I see the behavioural change with people who are trying immersive out and and the beta test is a pilot scheme, and we're we're currently looking for more founder members at the moment, but it's the thing that I see regularly is the shock of how when they watch the playback and they get the coaching of wow, why did we forget that? Why did we forget the basics? These are these are top of the game in hospitality. We how have we missed it? And it's because people have got so busy. We live in a fast-paced world now and we forget the basics elements of hospitality, it's all about being hospitable.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

And Alison, how do you think virtual reality can improve employee learning and retention? I mean, you've you're giving some examples, but why do you think that this can have a bigger impact on training?

SPEAKER_00 20:24

Okay, so what is really important for virtual reality, and the reason I picked it is because when we live experiences, when we live through moments, and we're amazing in our industry for creating magical memories for the guests who come through our doors. But the one thing that virtual reality does is it helps to make you feel. How does it make you feel? When I said earlier about people being triggered, it makes them feel something, and you remember that. I was speaking to a GM just just three weeks ago who'd just gone through some training. And I said, Oh, what training was it? Couldn't remember the title of it. And I said, Oh, okay, so oh what did you learn then? And and he said, and he turned to his HR manager and said, What was it about? And of course, I pick up on language very quickly. I pick up on what people say very, very quickly. And and I said, Try this then. So he tried it. And I said, I'm gonna give you a call in a week's time and see if you remember any element of this. He couldn't stop talking about it when he he took the headset off because the headset is is just the plastic headset and you put your phone in it, so the phone is the key, the headset is just the enabler. And and he said, Wow, I you know, d d do guests realise that when they check in early, the pressures that they put you under and he went off in a story which I then questioned, you know, did you have that animation and the experience from the training that you've just done literally a few days ago. And he he said no.

SPEAKER_01 22:07

Yeah, yeah. So it's it's visceral. It's visceral training. People are implicated in the training much more because it's a full-body experience for them.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

Yeah, and and the fact it's building confidence for our teams, our people in our industry is important. And it can, to be fair, it can be used in any customer facing environment training. But you know, when people feel trained, supported and invested in, they're more likely to stay. You know, we can forget why people are retained in our businesses. If they feel valued, it's not just about pay. It's people stay when they feel valued and developed and developed the right way, not as in promoted just for the sake of it or to keep somebody and then they're struggling to actually deal with the new promotion that they've got. I I've really learned a lot on the the immersive XP on tour. I've learned a lot and watching people try it for the first time has been like children in sweet shops. You know it's it's it's been really eye-opening and and really special and to to see it help and support people has just it's been it's been mind blowing but heartwarming.

SPEAKER_01 23:28

And what results have businesses seen from this kind of immersive learning?

SPEAKER_00 23:34

It is quite new so we're still on our minimum viable product so I am VP but what I have seen is stronger teams. People are getting like I said the GM who'd not turn around she'd been busy on a computer and she'd not turned round to give eye contact to you know the person who came through her door. But better service more confidence more retaining the team and and more consistence because they they're getting it. So it's helping with guest satisfaction, upselling any complaints, any issues that are coming up because they know what to say and how to say it and and it's helped with team performance and leadership. So I think I think consistency is key no matter what you do. You know consistently great is amazing but you've got to be consistent whatever you do in your standards of service because people notice if you're not and I think you know guest experience should not depend on who happens to be on shift.

SPEAKER_01 24:40

Alison what kind of challenges do you think hospitality businesses are facing today?

SPEAKER_00 24:46

We we are having the toughest time in the UK at the moment in our industry and to be fair we're a brilliant industry for diversify and innovating and that's what served me well and probably made me who I am today but the biggest issue right now is recruitment and retention. We have a statistic that really breaks my heart and and actually on the roadshow showcase in Immersive it's it shocked me how many general managers have all said that oh that doesn't surprise me. Wow that breaks my heart and you know retention's hard costs are rising some of us are expecting more I don't know what happened to social skills in COVID. It's as though everything just disappeared overnight you know business owners and managers and teams are absolutely tired. They're tired of firefighting there's a big leadership challenge going on. People as I said earlier are great at the job they're promote because they're great at the job but then they're not always trained to manage or lead people so we've got a lot of stress poor communication and people leaving staff retention and recruitment and costs are crippling.

SPEAKER_01 26:25

And of course we know that in this industry retention is difficult. Not everybody is made to work in hospitality there's a lot of stress the hours can be very long but again as you said it's very creative and no day ever looks the same. And for some people they really like that but maybe for other people that's maybe a little bit too much for them to handle.

SPEAKER_00 26:48

But I think I think we need to change as an industry and that's what I'm on a a big mission to do you know uh because having a vision that's making hospitality a leading career choice in the UK we've got to we've got to treat it like a profession. You know our our people our guests we we have been around since 1700 BC with the first known hospitality in French caves and and we're going to have the highest peak in hospitality in 2028 and and we've got to make a difference because I'll be honest with you I did not know that working long hours was a thing. I thought everybody did it in the world until I went to a a training I think it was a leadership management training program where I was surrounded by people in different industries and somebody asked the question you know what hours do you work and I went I don't know I think I think about 70 80 hours and at the time I was probably doing about a hundred and and everybody looked at me as though I'd come from outer space and they said what did you just say I said I think about 70 70 and 80 hours a week and they went did you not know the the full time hours are 39 and I went that's not full time that's part time what the heck are you doing the rest of the week and and I had no idea I had no idea it was the thing and and of course when I got married husband was just used to me not being there I don't know why we got married then that's another story that's another podcast but it was when I had children that's when I realised that I needed to be there I needed to put them to bed I needed to you know spend some time with them because I didn't have children for the sake of it I had children because I wanted to be with them and that's that's what really um hit home. And I had been the one who made excuses for not being at events family events friends events you know if people didn't boot me away in advance it wouldn't happen. Yeah but we need to change we we need to to definitely change our industry we can't carry on doing the hours and expecting people to do the hours if we make it a professional leading career choice when we make it a I'll change my language when we make it a professional leading career choice in the UK and beyond then then people are having a great work life balance and that is my mission to help a million busy business owners, teams and managers to live their best lives by being physically, mentally, emotionally and financially free because I've craved it for decades. So if I can do it for everybody else and could do it for myself.

SPEAKER_01 29:41

Before we sign off Alison what advice would you give to young people who are now entering the hospitality industry or who may be considering a hospitality management education?

SPEAKER_00 29:54

So I would definitely say yes to every opportunity. Everything that you get told as an opportunity every challenge that happens it's an opportunity a gift or a learning experience. Call fail as first action in learning and I would definitely crave learning and growing in our industry. I would ask as many questions soak up like a sponge to everybody you meet in our industry try every different department and watch people who are really good at what they do and learn from it and do not think any job is beneath you and I think every task teaches you something. I do feel and and have having been in AJLake's consultancy for the last nine years I actually coach CEOs and directors of multi-million pound companies in different industries and hospitality can open many doors if you have the right attitude it'll help build your confidence your people your business skills your resilience your resourcefulness so my advice is to be curious really curious work hard find the people who support you and challenge you and gain as much from them as possible but also really look at the sky is not the limit this is coming from my dad now and my grandfather the sky is not the limit space is limitless and know that every opportunity will lead you to the right path for where you're headed but grow, learn as much and do personal development. That's something I never did in my career as being you know throughout my whole hospitality career running hotels for a living I'd no idea what that was until I started my own business and everything showed up as it always does. And I would definitely I'd definitely do some personal development as well as professional development along the way.

SPEAKER_01 31:55

Alison thank you so much for being with us today and for sharing your insights your expertise and for telling us all about this incredible immersive technology that you've created thank you so much. Thank you for having me