At the start of the new academic year in September 2013, Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) welcomed a total of 394 new students for all courses. This year, almost 990 candidates applied to start the Preparatory Year at EHL. The admission rate was 36%, with 300 students accepted for the September 2013 entry.
The Board of Directors of Accor that convened on August 27, 2013, chaired by Philippe Citerne, decided to appoint Sébastien Bazin as Chairman and CEO of Accor. To take on this new role, Sébastien Bazin has ended all his duties at Colony Capital, which he had been heading since 1997. Philippe Citerne has been appointed as Vice-Chairman of Accor's Board of Directors.
The British Hospitality Association (BHA) will announce that the UK's hospitality and tourism industries will create over 30,000 new job opportunities for young people by 2015. The BHA will inform Mark Hoban MP, Minister of State for Employment of the pledge as it hosts its annual Summit at the InterContinental London Park Lane on Tuesday 11 June, 2013.
The Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) is devising its future campus by adopting an innovative, unique and international approach. The students of ten architecture universities from around the world, along with students from EHL, will meet in early July to devise their future place of studies.
Hilton Worldwide today announced the creation of up to 300 work placement opportunities a year at its hotels across the UK, for school pupils to gain valuable skills and experience in the world of work. The news comes during the company's biggest ever Europe wide careers campaign, Careers@HiltonLive, which will see almost 200 Hilton Worldwide hotels hosting over 320 careers events for an estimated 20,000 young people.
The ESSEC MBA in Hospitality Management (IMHI) celebrated its 30th anniversary on 25 April 2013. The event took place at ESSEC with a full programme including conferences, lunch and campus visit. ESSEC's MBA IN HOSPITALITY MANAGEMENT (IMHI) program is firmly positioned as a leader in graduate hospitality education in Europe and in the world. It is consistently ranked first among tourism/hospitality postgraduate degrees in France. It is taught in English. The training is given to a limited number of highly motivated candidates who wish to continue their studies to an MBA level and to focus on the international side of the hospitality industry. The programme can last 11 or 23 months, based on age and experience.
In March 2013, the Swiss Center of Accreditation and Quality Assurance in Higher Education (OAQ) attested that EHL's Executive MBA in Hospitality Administration met its quality standards. This important recognition reflects the educational commitments of EHL and the HES-SO to providing a world class Executive MBA - Hospitality Administration programme. Fabien Fresnel, Dean, commented: "Obtaining this recognition is an important milestone for our growing school. It marks publicly the successful entry of an Executive MBA programme into our growing portfolio of educational opportunities, ranging from executive education to entry-level training in the practical arts of food, beverage, and other aspects of hospitality."
Chef Ken Hom has strengthened his relationship with Oxford Brookes University by donating £22,500 to support students in the Oxford School of Hospitality Management.? Ken’s gift will be used to support the Bacchus Mentoring Programme, through which every final year undergraduate and every postgraduate student is assigned a mentor from industry. Unique in the British Higher Education sector, the programme enables students to develop their own network of senior professional contacts before leaving university.
Accor's Board of Directors met April 23rd at the request of its Chairman, Denis Hennequin, with all Directors in attendance. During this meeting, all the Directors came to the joint conclusion regarding the Group's situation: that the strategy adopted is the right one and that it will remain unchanged. However, given current economic conditions and the rapid transformation of its competitive environment, Accor must accelerate the implementation of this strategy in order to reinforce its positions. The Board therefore requested that the top priority be given to focusing energy and resources on transforming Accor's business model. The Board took note of Denis Hennequin's reservations and unanimously voted to terminate his mandate with immediate effect on April 23, 2013.
The Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne has announced the appointment of Dr Charles Ray Thomas Jr. as Director of the full-time Executive MBA in Hospitality Administration (EMBA). In his new role, Dr Thomas will oversee all aspects of the EMBA programme. Tailored to both career climbers and switchers in the hospitality sector, Dr Thomas will be tasked to further develop the high quality and the reputation of the programme.Commenting on the appointment, Dr Fabien Fresnel, Dean of Education & Research at the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne said: "We are very enthusiastic about the appointment of Charles at the helm of this programme. He is a seasoned professional with a strong operational and academic background on an international scale and brings with him a blend of financial and hospitality expertise. I am confident that our EMBA Programme will continue to flourish under his guidance." With over 30 years of experience in hospitality, Mr Thomas brings significant skills to the role; he joins the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne from Southwest Airlines, one of the most profitable airline operations in the world where he rose to the position of Director of Financial Analysis. He joined Southwest Airlines in 1987 as a Financial Analyst. Prior to this, he worked for five years as a Certified Public Accountant and partner at Thomas, McBride & Associates.Dr Thomas also taught finance, managerial accounting and accounting for decision making in various MBA and EMBA programmes in the US. Dr Thomas comes from the US where he was awarded a Master of Taxation from Baylor University and then a PhD in finance and accounting from The University of Texas at Arlington.
The Board has been enlarged under the leadership of André Witschi, the new President of the Board of Governors of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne, who wanted to "bring together all those driving hospitality and education forward, but more generally those business segments developing a dynamic and demanding approach to hospitality".
Corinthia Hotels announced that the first recipients of the Alfred Pisani Corinthia Hotels Scholarship, Genevieve Arnold and Phillip Rogers – students in the NYU School of Continuing and Professional Studies (NYU-SCPS) Preston Robert Tisch Center for Hospitality, Tourism, and Sports Management undergraduate program – noted the role the scholarship played in helping them achieve their academic and career goals as they look forward to graduation. Launched in support of students at the NYU-SCPS Tisch Center, the scholarships were awarded to Arnold and Rogers for 2012/2013 academic year.
Getting to know new cultures, working in international teams and taking responsibility early on - this is how many high-flying hotel careers have begun at Kempinski. For those with the right attitude and a dream, these paths are still open. And to them, registering for the upcoming Kempinski Career Day in Munich is a must.
Glion Institute of Higher Education, one of the world's top three institutions of higher education for an international career in hospitality management, announced today that it is opening its first branch campus in London. The new campus expands the reach of Glion's Swiss hospitality education programmes to students and industry leaders in the U.K. Glion is a member of Laureate International Universities, a global network of more than 60 accredited campus-based and online institutions of higher education serving more than 740,000 students in 29 countries.
Right now Clementine Dupraz is busy slicing a chocolate cake, but soon she may be running a luxury hotel, or crunching numbers in a bank. For this Swiss school trains the elite of world hospitality, teaching them to talk both food and money. "Finance has become a more and more important part of the industry," explained Fabien Fresnel, dean of Lausanne's Hospitality Management School, an ultra-modern facility set on the hills above the city. "Back in the old days, a hotel manager would usually own the premises. Today you typically have on the one hand a manager, on the other his investors, plus asset managers etc. "So the new generation of managers need to speak the language of finance, to be able to track down wasteful spending and keep shareholders happy."
Following the past success of the Association’s ‘Career Development Investment Scholarships’, HOSPA is once again offering an unique opportunity to provide career development for five upcoming young people working in Finance, Revenue Management or IT within the UK hospitality industry.
While many companies in the hospitality sector are beginning to boost the number of women at senior level, much more still needs to be done to encourage and fulfill the boardroom ambitions of female senior managers. HVS Executive Search held a briefing in London on the issue of encouraging more women into senior roles in the industry. A panel of high profile speakers including Deborah Dhugga, General Manager of Dukes Hotel in London, Alison Frith, Managing Director of Artizian Catering and Jillian MacLean, Managing Director of Drake & Morgan highlighted the issues women faced while attempting to achieve board-room success, but also suggested that women need to take a lead from their male counterparts by drawing more attention to their successes.
The Supervisory Board of Steigenberger Hotels AG has appointed Puneet Chhatwal as new Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of the Management Board. From January 1, 2013 onwards and together with Chief Financial Officer (CFO) Matthias Heck, Chhatwal will hold responsibility for the hotel business based in Frankfurt/Main.
Autumn starts and it´s getting lively again at IUBH on Campus Bad Reichenhall. About 60 freshmen and 50 students, who returned home from their internships in foreign countries, initiate their study program at university and carry on the tendency of growth at IUBH.
The Swiss company Hospitality Connection has announced the entry of the International University of Applied Sciences Bad Honnef, Bonn, Germany to its exclusive online hospitality network: HOSCO. Hospitality Connection, based in Geneva (Switzerland), provides hospitality players including over 400 companies and 2300 students from 16 top-ranked hotel schools, with an innovative tool to meet and interact.