With the continuous advancement of Lijiang’s initiative to build a world-famous cultural tourism city, the cultural and tourism industry has become a pillar of the local economy. Accommodation formats including hotels, homestays and hillside hotels are thriving. While the industry’s demand for hotel management professionals keeps expanding, it is confronted with practical dilemmas such as talent outflow, students’ insufficient professional identity and diversified job competition. Based on official statistical data of Lijiang’s cultural-tourism industry and the status quo of talent training for hotel management majors in local universities, this paper analyzes the employment market demand of Lijiang’s hotel industry and the employment advantages of hotel management majors. It sorts out practical problems existing in students’ career planning and puts forward optimization countermeasures from the perspectives of students’ self-improvement, local career path selection and collaborative education among universities, enterprises and the government. This paper provides references for hotel-management majors in Lijiang to formulate career plans and realize high-quality employment.