The Future of Hospitality Summit 2016 held at the end of October at Les Roches hotel management school in Switzerland focused on the rapid pace of innovation affecting the hospitality industry, highlighting practical ways of thinking about, and confronting, the unfolding future.
Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), the world's leading institution in hospitality management education, will be offering a new MBA in Hospitality as of September 2017. With 80% of the curriculum available through a novel distance learning platform, busy professionals will be given access to a unique learning experience without getting sidetracked from their career. This new program is part of EHL's broader commitment to defining industry standards, while catering to the needs and aspirations of its students. It is also the first time that EHL is offering digital learning, demonstrating its capacity to listen to the industry and produce an academic program adapted to the latest trends.
Les Roches Global Hospitality Education, ranked among the world's top three institutions of higher education for an international career in hospitality management (TNS Global Survey, 2013), announced that it is running a Career- related Programme in hospitality for well-known Swiss International Baccalaureate® (IB) school Collège du Léman based in Versoix, Geneva, started in Bluche VS on September 12, 2016. This new academic offering exposes IB students to the world of hospitality and offers them opportunities to work as an individual and as a team in this dynamic industry.
A new study by hospitality intelligence firm, HotStats, identified that the pace of growth in payroll costs is hampering the ability of UK hoteliers to increase profit. The study, Benchmarking Beyond RevPAR, which polled a consistent sample of nearly 45,000 hotel bedrooms across the UK over a 15-year period, revealed that payroll now comprises close to one third of a Regional hotel's cost base.
Dr Bert 'Bow-Thai' van Walbeek was honoured by the University of West London (UWL)'s London College of Hospitality and Tourism on Thursday 21 July. The University's annual graduation ceremony took place at Wembley Stadium and the honorary degree recipients were joined by more than 1,700 graduates.
The Oxford School of Hospitality Management at Oxford Brookes University has recently launched an exciting new master's course - MSc Tourism Futures. Applications are now being received for students to start the course in September 2016. The contemporary international tourism industry faces a range of major political, cultural, economic and environmental challenges. On this course students will explore how destinations and organisations can effectively respond to these challenges using new and innovative approaches to business.
EHL Group announces Michael Hartmann as new Managing Director of the Swiss School of Tourism and Hospitality (SSTH) in Passugg. Michael replaces Mr. Knut Rupprecht who is leaving SSTH for personal reasons. We would like to thank Knut for his personal dedication to the rebirth of the school. Effective immediately, Michael is set to drive the further development of the sister school of Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), dedicated to vocational hospitality education.
Marriott's CANVAS project, a food and beverage talent incubator designed to unlock the potential of unused spaces in European Marriott hotels, returns for a second year with the launch of Notch on the rooftop of London's Marriott Park Lane hotel.Formerly known as Roofnic, Notch is a new concept developed by Ashley Dawes who conceived the original project in 2015 and secured investment from Marriott in his idea, whilst still an employee of London Marriott Park Lane. The new popup rooftop bar revolves around Japanese street food, pop cans of homemade cocktails and takes inspiration from the Millennial hotspots of Williamsberg and Berlin. Accessed via a separate entrance off Oxford Street and designed as a sky-high industrial playground, Notch features an eclectic mix of reclaimed school tables, scaffolding and swings alongside a vibrant bar and open kitchen named Fudo Shack.Following the great success of Roofnic in 2015, which turned over £500,000 revenue in just three months, Ashley set up DenLDN, a bar and restaurant consultancy, using the experience gained from taking part in the project as a springboard to launch his own business.Conceived to transform and monetise unused spaces within hotels, CANVAS challenges Marriott employees and local entrepreneurs to create distinctive and engaging restaurant and bar experiences with the support of experienced operational teams at Marriott. The creator of each winning concept is offered a minimal budget – typically just £35,000 per project – to build and develop the restaurant or bar at chosen hotel locations.Positioned as incubator labs, these restaurants sit outside Marriott's standard restaurant protocols in order to fully experiment with the design. Each project is adapted and evolves depending on feedback and results, resulting in dining experiences that transform perceptions of hotel restaurants and resonate with the much sought after Millennial consumer.Since its launch in 2015, CANVAS has completed four successful projects, three with Marriott associates and one, in Hungary, with a local entrepreneur. These four imaginative bars and restaurants have proved to be a runaway success, providing exceptional drinking and dining experiences and also a valuable understanding of consumer demand. There are already plans to expand CANVAS to more sites across Europe this year and each live project brings a wealth of learnings, innovation and inspiration to Marriott, which will help plan future F&B offerings within the company's hotel network.Jeremy Dodson, Vice President, Food and Beverage, Marriott International Europe, comments: "Innovation is high on the agenda for Marriott as we strive to connect with new audiences. We have already learnt so much from these initial pilots and I am so proud that Ashley has returned to Marriott to bring his Notch concept to life.""By combining the creativity and passion of entrepreneurs with the scope and resources available in our hotels, we can create some truly extraordinary restaurant and bar experiences. Our goal is to empower fresh-thinking, passionate F&B professionals to test out their ideas using dead space within our hotel, inspiring those who visit our hotels but also challenging us to constantly re-think and innovate our F&B offering." The pilot schemes:Roofnic in London was the first CANVAS project to launch and was the great success story of the programme. It was a summer bar that drew inspiration from the playful vibe of British summer music festivals such as Latitude and Bestival. Located at the London Marriott Hotel Park Lane, and accessed via a separate, secret entrance, the team, led by Ashley Dawes, former Restaurant & Bar Manager, took an unused roof terrace and transformed it into a rustic summer garden, with simple wooden benches, folding garden furniture and – most importantly – affordable prices. The bar often had queues down the streets and was selling 1000 cocktails a day, turning over more than £500,000 in revenue over the Summer. Hot on the heels of Roofnic was St Pancras MI+ME, an urban cheese and charcuterie bar at St Pancras Renaissance Hotel, London – right by the entrance to St Pancras International Station and ideally located for travellers seeking creative and tasty food. Andrew Nadin, Food and Beverage Director at Renaissance St Pancras, was inspired by the booming micro-brewery scene, and the public's appetite for simple, informal meals and bar snacks using top-quality British produce. MI+ME serves artisan meat and cheese boards (sourced from British farms), and salt-beef sandwiches or hand-carved bacon baps. The food is complemented by delicious boutique coffee, craft beers, house wines and cocktails, while the decor augments the informal, rustic, drop-in theme: reclaimed furniture, jam-jar light fixtures and wooden benches that were designed and built by the team.MI+ME has proved a hit and is a permanent installation offering an array of events including gin masterclasses or cured meat and craft ales, working with local suppliers to deliver insight into small craft business who provide the products to the venue.#Hashtag Coffee Shop Berlin, situated in Marriott's Courtyard Berlin hotel, is a lively, fashionable café serving tasty comfort food with a local twist, including melted cheese and pastrami sandwiches and baked potatoes served with innovative local fillings, such as curry wurst and doner kebab. The café has a strong following and the signature lunch offerings are a firm favourite in the local market. In Budapest, the Marionett Craft Beer House was masterminded by a local entrepreneur, Imre Toth, following a highly successful community competition. The winning concept is an intriguing industrial-style space featuring handmade puppet characters as an eye-catching feature that illustrate each of the 20 draft beer pumps. Tables, bar stools, an open kitchen and a blackboard menu complement the industrial chic surroundings, designed to appeal to locals as much as hotel guests and tourists.For more information, please visit – www.canvas-startup.com.
The School's co-founder Sir Garry Hawkes and Hotelier of the Year 2014 Danny Pecorelli will receive their degrees at the Edge Hotel School graduation ceremony on Friday 15 July. Described as one of the pioneers within the contract catering sector, Sir Garry is now Director of the Edge Foundation, former President of Hospitality Action, President of the British Hospitality Association, former Chairman of Edexcel and former Chair of the Basic Skills Agency. He went to Huddersfield Polytechnic and studied Hospitality Management for three years. After studying, he rose through the ranks to become chief executive of international catering company Gardner Merchant, leading the management buyout to buy the company. Sir Garry then became chairman of Edexcel, which he later sold to Pearson, the publishers of the Financial Times.
Mr Shiraz Boghani, Chairman of Splendid Hospitality Group, was recently honoured at the Asian Business Awards 2016, when he received the 'Hotelier of the Year' award.
Lausanne – The Young Hoteliers Summit (YHS) Rankings 2016 aims to identify the most desirable employers in the hotel industry as perceived by young hoteliers worldwide. It gives insights into the views and priorities of the future generation and recognizes the companies that are at the forefront of employment practices. A snapshot of the results was presented during the opening ceremony of YHS 2016 on 14th March 2016.
Dusit International's Education Division is pleased to announce the recent signing of a Memorandum of Understanding with the famed Swiss hospitality training institution École Hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL).
METRO GROUP, a German global diversified retail and wholesale/cash and carry group, has signed an agreement with L'Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne to host a collaboration chair on the topic of digital innovation in HoReCa. Hotels, restaurants and caterers are a core customer group of METRO Cash & Carry, the company's wholesale division.
trivago's current headquarters in Dusseldorf, Germany are getting a bit tight, to say the least. With 222% growth since 2012, the multinational team of 950 needs room to grow, which is why trivago has commissioned a new state-of-the- art campus it plans to relocate to in 2018.
Swiss website 24heures.ch talks about an upcoming sale of Laureate's hotelschools in Switzerland. Besides the Glion Institute of Higher Education (two sites in Switzerland and one in Bubble London 2200 students), Laureate, world leader in high private schools (one million students on 80 campuses in 28 countries), owns the Hotel School Les Roches, Bluche (VS). A prize of € 200 million should be raised for the package (220 million), according Ecucation Investor. Credit Suisse would be in charge of the first round of offers which recently started.
During the conference, the results of a study commissioned by the EU on training and training systems for tourism will be presented, as well as how these systems meet the needs of the industry. Scandic is the only hotel chain that has been invited to inspire companies to use interactive training to support people with special needs.
Stratford City Hotels, which is managed by Cycas Hospitality, was awarded top accolade of No1 Best Employer in Hospitality 2015 at the Caterer.com's Best Employers in Hospitality Awards 2015 scoring the highest for employment engagement.
The inaugural IHG European Business School was held in association with the Oxford School of Hospitality Management, Oxford Brookes University, from 24th to 26th August 2015. Over 100 delegates, all employees of IHG selected on the basis of their performance and potential, gathered for a 'back to university' intensive learning experience.
Against the backdrop of its pledge to uphold the best corporate practices, NH Hotel Group has updated its Code of Conduct with a view to increasing the scope of application of the principles and values that guide the Group's behaviour, while adapting the Code for recent legislative developments.
Switzerland has an unrivaled reputation as a center of excellence for hospitality education. But there is a lot more to the country that makes it an attractive place to study. This infographic, the seventh in Les Roches series, highlights ten great things about Switzerland – some you could probably guess, others may come as a surprise. Let us know what you think!