10 Free Hospitality Certifications

Guest service is one of the most crucial skills in the hospitality industry. How your team serves their customers will determine whether they return for another visit or warn their friends to avoid your place.

SC Training (formerly EdApp)’s Guest Service in Hospitality and Tourism will walk your team through the critical components of excellent guest service and why it's crucial for business and their career. It will also show them the ropes of greeting guests in a hotel or restaurant and how good social skills will help secure a great and lasting first impression. The last part of this customer service course will focus on the most common customer complaints in this industry alongside tips on how to deal with them. 

SC Training’s seamless integration with the scheduling system Deputy can help you deliver and allocate this training straight to your team’s smartphones. Through SC Training's automated training delivery, you’ll spend less time managing your team's training and focus on more important tasks.

The competition in the hospitality industry is undoubtedly fierce, and one of the best ways to survive on this battlefield is by creating a brand with a great guest experience. SC Training’s Guest Experiences contains helpful tips on how to deliver good customer service, which include smiling, breaking the ice, and reading the moods of guests.

What’s great about this hospitality training course is that it uses animated examples to help your crew better understand and remember these techniques. Ways to personalize a guest experience and ensure consistent service are also discussed in detail, all of which are vital in turning guests into “regulars” and securing long-term business relationships with them.

The last part of this course sheds light on the most common customer issues and how to anticipate and avoid them in the future. Feel free to use the platform's authoring tool to edit this course’s content and add tips and strategies that are unique to your business.

This free hospitality certification by Coursera is geared towards breaking down commercial silos, making sure that the information and resources flow freely across your organization. It covers topics such as asset management, a marketing strategy called demand generation, and revenue management.

Your crew will get to explore key factors that will secure your hotel’s success in such a competitive marketplace. With the rapid rise of technology trends today, this course will also guide your team through the importance of online marketing in building their presence in the digital world.

Coursera offers flexible deadlines for this hotel certification course and it can be taken anytime and anywhere. 

If you’re looking for a free hospitality certification for your entry-level workers, Brentwood’s Hotel Management Course is a good option.

As one of the best online courses for hospitality management, this course delves into the basics of hotel management and the primary duties of key hotel departments. It will also introduce your team to the basics of front-office operations and housekeeping.

There are no deadlines and time restrictions – learners are in charge of their learning schedule. This hotel management course is completely free to take and certificates are available for a small fee.

SC Training’s Teamwork in the Hospitality Industry highlights the role of teamwork in the hospitality industry, how it looks in practice, and how your team can benefit from it, both personally and professionally.

The course discusses the important aspects of verbal and non-verbal communication, and why this skill is particularly vital in building healthy relationships with their team. To ensure higher learning retention, this free hospitality certification contains real-world scenarios where teamwork can be applied, alongside some tips to improve each situation.

Embracing mobile learning technology, all SC Training courses have been designed to perfectly respond to smartphones. This gives learners the flexibility to take their courses on the go or between their breaks, anytime and anywhere they prefer. 

According to studies, 92% percent of customers are more likely to recommend a hotel or restaurant to their peers if the place is clean with excellent hygienic practices. Nearly 74% of these consumers even agree that they can tolerate slow services as long as the establishment is clean.

With that in mind, SC Training has put together this cleaning training course to provide your team with all the information needed to secure cleanliness in your hotel or restaurant. It discusses the best practices in servicing restrooms and cleaning dining locations and other public service areas, like lobbies, corridors, walkways, and waiting rooms.

By the end of this course, learners will get to explore the difference between cleaning and sanitizing, and also proper disinfection and cleaning techniques. 

A gamified quiz is ready by the end of the course to test the understanding of your hoteliers. Enable SC Training’s gamification features to foster healthy competition among your team.  

This edX-hosted free hospitality certification was created by industry experts from the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and it’s geared towards teams that are managing luxury brands within the hospitality industry. It unpacks the essence of luxury brand management as well as the skills and strategies needed to thrive in this sector.

Your team will get to explore expert marketing techniques and long-term trends in the luxury industry that will help put your brand at the forefront of the competition. It will also go over some of the widespread problems within the sector alongside strategies to overcome them. This hospitality management training program is free, but to get the most out of it, learners should have basic hospitality experience.

Oxford Home Study Centre’s Hotel Management is an introductory course engineered by renowned academics and experts in this field. It discusses the basics of hotel management, which is perfect for onboarding new hires. There’s also a comprehensive rundown of the function of front desk operations, as well as the responsibilities of the housekeeping department.

Enrolling in this hospitality course comes with study aids and learning materials. It also supports self-paced learning, allowing your team to decide when and where they want to take and complete their training. 

Alison’s English for Tourism course is more than just a language course. It’s intended to help hotel receptionists and front desk workers improve their communication skills and make sure that they leave a positive impression on their guests.

In this course, they will learn how to greet their guests respectfully, give them directions, and provide them with help whenever needed. It will go over some helpful conversational techniques especially when answering hotel inquiries and checking a guest in and out of the hotel. Steps to handle and resolve complaints will be discussed as well.

This program is free, but a small fee will be needed should you wish to avail a shareable online hospitality certificate.

If you’re also handling a team of bussers for your hotel restaurant, then you might want to give them this course from SC Training to enhance their skills and ensure the best service to your guests.

Here, they’ll learn everything about the role and responsibilities of a busser, which includes folding the napkins, pre-bussing tables, clearing tables, carrying plates, and more. It goes through ways how to read a guest's mood, which, once mastered, can help your bussers provide exceptional guest service. Lessons on how to clear tables professionally and clean dishes and utensils are included as well.

Toward the end of this course, your learners can take a quick quiz to check how much they’ve learned and remembered from their training. 

This free hospitality certification follows a microlearning design model. Lessons are structured in bite sizes that your crew can finish in just about 5-10 minutes. This microlearning course is also more concise and targeted, ensuring higher learner engagement and increased knowledge retention.