Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) Launches a New Department for Start-Ups

Lausanne | Today the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) is glad to announce the launch of its new department: INTEHL (Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship). INTEHL will be an incubator designed to help young entrepreneurs develop business plans, implement new business projects and contribute to their success by helping them to find financial resources, ensuring the viability of their concepts and providing them with permanent support during the development phase. EHL will put its infrastructures at their disposal and make it possible to test new concepts on the EHL population and invite potential investors, prior to the official launch.

From idea to implementation
As a business incubator, the INTEHL Department’s goal is to help implement ideas, thereby ensuring that projects or new concepts can become viable enterprises. The concept behind INTEHL is that the person at the origin of a novel idea does not necessarily have the competencies needed to carry the project through, or the financial resources to start their own business. The role of EHL, and INTEHL in particular, is to answer this need in the hospitality industry.

How does it work?
The entrepreneur has an idea and is looking for a professional incubator that can help to develop a business plan. If the project is accepted, INTEHL will help the entrepreneur to establish a professional business plan. Once this is accomplished, an external investment fund will decide whether they are willing to finance the creation of a company. If the fund accepts the proposal, the business plan is then sent to INTEHL. The incubator will help and support the entrepreneur until such a time as the company is ready to be launched on the open market (setting up a marketing strategy, creating a corporate name, acquiring the first clients, drawing up a financial plan...). At the end of this process the company will be launched on the market and will be ready to develop its activities. In the mid- to long-term, the investors will benefit from the added value of their investment.

Infrastructures and financing
The investment funds necessary to launch new start-ups will be raised by an external company in collaboration with EHL and other financial partners (private, venture capital funds, institutional investors...). Furthermore, this investment fund will act as a coach for the young entrepreneurs.

This new project is a major contribution to EHL’s new strategy. In considering innovation and entrepreneurship from a strategic and operational point of view, the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne puts at its student’s disposal the competencies they need to create companies in which innovation will be one of the major assets.

About the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne | Oldest hospitality school in the world, the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) provides high-learning university education to talented and ambitious students who want a top management career in the hospitality industry worldwide. Recognised as a Specialised High School (Haute Ecole Spécialisée - HES) by the Swiss government and accredited by the New England Association of Schools and Colleges (NEASC) in the USA, the school offers three made-to-measure programmes. The EHL regularly adjusts its curriculum according to new business developments and technologies in order to train and educate its future performing managers. Since its foundation in 1893, the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne has educated more than 25,000 hospitality managers, thus creating an inspiring global network for all EHL members. About 1700 students representing more than 85 nationalities are currently enjoying the unique way of life - and learning - of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne.