To sustain well in the current knowledge economy, we all need to stay ahead of the competition. Same is true for the hospitality industry. In this article, we have listed a few online hospitality management courses that can be pursued in the comfort of your time and location.
Also, most of these listed online Hospitality Management courses are FREE. Let’s get on with it.
Hospitality management systems are basically aimed towards providing top-notch services to the people, in a cost-effective way.
There are a number of good providers of online education and degrees similar to these with a brand attached to the degree along with the course value.
A lot of Top Hospitality Management Schools now also have both on-campus and online courses related to hospitality and tourism.
But, even with high-quality content and value, they are pricey as well as time-bound. In case you need more flexibility and want to help yourself with a free training course, you are in the right place.

In this post, we aim to provide detailed information on free online hospitality management courses and hotel management courses.
Follow the links provided in this post for all the great hospitality courses from top institutes that you can pursue free of cost.
Also, given that these hotel management courses are free, it doesn’t mean that they are of any less importance.
A lot of these courses are provided by top institutions.
Here is a list of some of the free online hospitality management courses which you can benefit from.
1. Global Hospitality Management by Cornell
Are you an aspiring hotelier or a hospitality professional?
You must have heard about the famous Cornell University of USA. Cornell keeps coming up with lots of open ware to help hospitality industry professionals in gaining quality education for free.
They had one such free online hospitality certificate course back in 2015 and will have another one soon. Look out for free courses on hospitality management delivered by the tutors of this great institution.
As one of the largest and the most important contemporary global sectors, hotel industry offers an outstanding lifelong career prospect.
Just as much as there will be demand for top-notch hotel services, there’ll likewise be an equally intense need for highly trained, experienced, and competent hotel managers (famously called hoteliers).
So, whether you are starting out in the hotel management arena or already working in the hospitality industry, these free online hotel management courses will offer you a chance to transform your hospitality management career.
It will help you move from a drab to fab in the shortest time possible.
Apart from Cornell USA, there are a lot of interesting free online study options by American Hotel & Lodging Educational Institute (AHLEI).
Just visit their website and explore for yourself all the free options.

The good thing is that these online courses and various hospitality industry certificates give you that one-off chance to study while advancing your experience in the industry.
2. Listening to the Customers by MIT
One of the customer-driven online courses, Listening to the Customers, is offered by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT).
It is based on teaching the students about customer management, general management and customer researching.
This course is the core of the hospitality industry, which is mainly about customer service.
MIT is one of the best institutes globally and people yearn to be able to listen to the intellectual giants of Sloan Management Schools.
So, it is an opportunity not to be missed if you want to improve your knowledge of the hospitality industry.
OpenCourseWare by MIT is a great online free hospitality course platform.
Most free hospitality courses are typically available from top-notch schools that form the incredible OCW Consortium.
These free courses that are accessible online don’t require registration, attendance, and are neither graded nor award credit.
Nonetheless, the following free hotel management course available from OCW can help you boost your hospitality career.
There are various popular free online hospitality courses offered by MIT. Some of these are:
- Marketing Management- This 25-lecture course covers everything to do with marketing management strategies, including branding, product design, market research, advertising, competition, and consumer behaviour.
- Listening to the Customer- A graduate-level course for those looking to further customer understanding and market research, this course is ideal for both hospitality students and professionals. You can download lecture notes (in PDF form) and reading list.
- Management of Services This graduate-level course is tailored for students who are interested in learning a variety of hotel management styles. You can download everything in the form of the ZIP file from the OCW website or lecture notes, assignments, and examples of projects in the form of PDF.
You can get a lot of hotel management related content for free on this Opecourseware by MIT. Explore all the options to check which free online course suits you the most.
3. Introduction to Spa and Hospitality Operations by UC-Irvine
With a course and lesson overviews, the Introduction to Spa and Hospitality Operations is offered by the University of California – Irvine (UC-Irvine).
It aims towards teaching the students about the operational, managerial and administrative ways of running a spa successfully.
The students also have a chance to study the certificate course on campus in the USA for the full version of this highly reputed course.
For the ease of finding the route to the open ware please follow the process.
Here is the link to UCI open.
Click on the last tab on the left side which mentions University Extension.
The first one is UNEX management and in the subdivision find the course “Spa and Hospitality Operation’. Click on the same and start the course.
The course format and location on the web page can change and this information is accurate as on the date of publishing of the post.
The UCI Open page is loaded with a lot of other free online courses from one of the best institutes. So, start exploring.
4. Introduction to Tourism
Are you a Hotel Management graduate with or without experience?
Are you a travel and tourism professional without any background of the subject? Or Are you a tourism enthusiast who would like to learn more about the Tourism industry?
This course by the University of Southern Queensland is the right choice for you.
Usually, the Introduction to Tourism is a 14 weeks’ course offered by the University of Southern Queensland, which helps in introducing the students to tourism and the whole tourism industry.
The students are taught the definition of tourism, the tourist’s attractions points, analysing the revenue generated through tourism and contains several segments, for the students to go through.
There is another great resource named edx for free online hospitality training and online hotel management and tourism courses
Few extremely interesting courses like Innovation and Technology Management and Hospitality, Tourism Management etc. can be studies online Free.
This website provides some of the best free online hospitality courses directly from reputed institutes like Harvard, Hongkong Polytechnic Institute, MIT and so on.
The below screengrab of the website would give you a glimpse of some of the free online hospitality courses on offer here. Add ons for nominal extra charges are hospitality certification or tutor-led online courses.

Open University is another source of numerous free high-quality tourism and hospitality courses online for everyone to explore.
This UK based platform has been providing quality free resources for over 12 years now.
5. Hotel Management and Hospitality Management Free Online Courses
Brentwood college course section provides 100% free of charge hotel management course that will last a total of 80 hours. Upon completion, you will receive an accreditation letter from Brentwood via email.
Is that not a great way to gain some exposure as well as a certificate in the hotel industry?
There are numerous other free courses on offer as well the mode of which are online. Explore those for yourself.
The screenshot below of their website will give you a feel of what can be expected out of the free online hotel management course by Brentwood College.
Have a look!

Diploma in Hospitality Management by Alison and advance diploma in tourism management are other free options for hospitality course aspirants.
The site is fresh and looks to provide quality resources for hotel management professionals. This is quite a great website for free hospitality certificate courses online.
In case you are not from the hospitality industry and want to make a lateral entry to the industry, here’s a good course for you.
For non-hotel management guys, Hotel Management by OMSC is one of the best free hospitality courses online. This entry-level course will set you back 80 hours, and you will receive accreditation from the College via email.
Another popular free online hospitality course is the management of Services and Marketing Management
The Management of Services is a free online course offered by Ashford University, which is derived from the graduate course of the service industry.
The course is about managing and teaching all the services operations, which are used in both the private and non-profit sectors of a country.
In this free online course, students get a chance to learn different styles of service management in different businesses.
Another course that is dedicated to marketing management is offered by Baker College Online. This category of courses is crucial for Sales and Marketing people in the Hospitality industry.
Focusing on different marketing management strategies, the Marketing Management course offered by Baker College Online teaches the students different topics such as branding, marketing research, product design and consumer behaviour.
6. Food Entrepreneurship by University of California
This again is a very popular free online hospitality course especially for those looking for the online educational resources on restaurant management.
The Food Entrepreneurship is basically a lecture, presented by the University of California, Berkley, mainly through YouTube.
The lectures are almost an hour long each, and most of these lectures are illustrated by panellists, who teach the students how restaurants can survive in the economic crunch.
Question and answers as well as presentations and lectures can be found on Youtube as free and are an open-source of learning and exploring innovation in the food and beverage industry.
The University of California is an extremely reputed University and even an online video course can help wannabe hospitality entrepreneurs big time.
Wrapping it all up
In this article, we have ensured that you get through the list in this post, high quality and FREE Hospitality Management courses.
So, take your favourite course from the list and give your career wings.
The best free online courses in hospitality management have been provided over the internet, for people who have a passion for the hospitality niche.
Other courses such as Restaurant Management, Food and Beverages Management and Resort Management are also being categorised in the list of the best online hospitality courses.
Hence, if you have a leaning towards the thriving hospitality industry, the above-mentioned courses are worth considering.
Moreover, these Hospitality Courses help you leverage a bigger hospitality network by exposing you to a lot of Associations of the Hospitality Industry.
Hospitality management has been revolutionised over the years, and different institutions have started training people in this niche, with the help of different programs and courses.
Similarly, the digital world is playing its role by providing best free online hospitality management courses.
So, if you want to learn more or want to get additional exposure to the hospitality industry, you can opt for a few very popular online hospitality management courses.
We have made a sincere effort to include almost all the free courses out there pertaining to the hotel industry.
Most of the online Hospitality Management Courses mentioned here are Free and are being provided by a few of the best institutions around the globe. It is worth every minute to enhance your working knowledge as a hotel management professional.
So, it’s worth exploring!