The Hindu Business Line : Hotel and tourism management course with a global touch

The new college, with a students-faculty ratio of 7:1, would also hone young talent for careers in facility and enterprise management in airlines, airports and corporate houses and event management enterprises.

P. C. Thomas, President, Good Shepherd College of Hotel Management, Udhagamandalam.

C. J. Punnathara

The distinguishing feature of the Bachelor’s programme in International Business in Hotel and Tourism Management offered by the Good Shepherd College of Hotel Management, Udhagamandalam, will be its international flavour. Internationally reputed faculty will teach the students culinary skills from across the globe, not limiting them to Indian cuisine alone. Students will also have the option of learning French or German so as to be able to service an international cl ientele,” says P. C. Thomas, President of the Good Shepherd College of Hotel Management.

The course being offered by the collegeis a twinning programme under which two years of the programme can be completed at Udhagamandalam followed by a year at the Cesar Ritz Colleges at Switzerland.

The degree would be presented by the Swiss institution, which also has campuses in the US and Australia. The new college and course have been launched following the tie up forged between the Good Shepherd International School and the Cesar Ritz Colleges, Switzerland.

The new college, with a students-faculty ratio of 7:1, would also hone young talent for careers in a range of fields such as facility and enterprise management in airlines, airports and corporate houses and event management enterprises — in short, wherever there is a confluence of management skills, economics, commerce and logistics.

Providing logistics management support in an international arena can be a formidable task transcending international boundaries, cutting across several time zones, often involving diverse cultures, cuisines and has to be backed up by immense logistical support and capital.

The intention was to produce good managers for leading hotels, said Thomas, adding that the country was slated to add 37 new five-star hotels in the coming year. According to him, hospitality curricula offered by Indian institutions had early specialisation. As a result, while we produced good chefs, food and beverage managers, housekeeping staff, waiters, bearers, bellboys, and so on, not enough candidates were being generated for the higher management echelons.

Entry into the management cadre seemed to be barricaded by the absence of an exceptionally good educational background, Thomas said. This was something that the Good Shepherd College of Hotel Management planned to rectify.

Investment in the hospitality industry was poised to increase with the economy wooing more business visitors and tourists.

While business visitors faced an acute shortage of rooms in places like Bangalore, there were hardly any rooms in resorts in Kerala during the peak tourist season.

The burgeoning travel industry was leading to an acute shortage of qualified staff for the hospitality sector, Thomas said.

The fees for the first two years at the Good Shepherd College of Hotel Management would be around Rs 3 lakh per year. The first batch of 60 students would be admitted this year.

Each semester at the three-semester programme at Cesar Ritz College in Switzerland would involve an additional expenditure of 13,000 Swiss francs.

In all, the fees for the three-year course would add up to around Rs 21 lakh, Thomas said.

More than 270 students from 45 countries study at the University Centre ‘Cesar Ritz,’ Brig, Switzerland, which offered a dynamic and challenging learning experience, said Tanja Kisselef, Dean, Good Shepherd College of Hotel Management.

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