Counsellors’ Retreat 2020 - Reimagining Hospitality Education

Last week, we successfully concluded our Counsellors’ Retreat 2020. Usually we have the luxury to host our counsellor community at the ISH campus but COVID has changed the game this year. While it’s no surprise that this has been an unprecedented year, the pandemic has also shaped the world in a different way, with technology playing a big part. In fact, we have been able to connect with so many more counsellors this year with our blended approach, all thanks to technology.

As an educational institute, we’ve gone through and felt the effects of this situation very closely. We anticipated its implications on us and acted swiftly - classes rapidly shifted online, curriculum modified accordingly, and by September 2020 which is when we resumed classes on campus, we had delivered more than 1200 hours of asynchronous and synchronous learning. But we didn’t stop just here. After numerous discussions with industry leaders and advisors, we launched our first PGP Programme for graduates and young professionals, in the middle of the pandemic.

With our annual counsellors’ meet, we took another step towards our long-term goal of demystifying hospitality education in the country. Which brings me to our groundwork – how exactly are we creating a community that enhances and redefines hospitality? The business mindset is undergoing a paradigm shift, and delivering a great experience is as important as delivering a good product. Businesses are investing in ‘humanising’ their brand and hiring people who can translate that into the end user experience. Companies flourishing the most in today’s landscape are known not for just what they’re selling but also how they’re selling it, and how successful their customer retention is.

And that is key to our ecosystem. We understand that hospitality is an essential part of every business. What we are instilling through our programmes is an entrepreneurial mindset along with giving our students practical training in the areas of business, strategy, profit management, service excellence and team management from the very beginning so they are ready to choose and excel in any of the plethora of career paths that this education offers. With Swiss education as the base, every part of our learning methodology has been put together with the goal to foster real life, workplace ready, customer centric skills. The industry is our primary customer, and we're constantly evaluating it. This principle enables us to work backwards and create an environment for our faculty, students and staff where they fit the requirements of industry from the very start.

Our counsellors’ retreat saw some major personalities and leaders from the industry who reinforced our belief in this vision and offered insights into what the future demands. With proposed changes brought in by the National Education Policy, the higher education landscape will undergo massive change and ISH is well on its path to become a thought leader in the ever evolving space of hospitality education.

It's been a tough year, but our indomitable spirit and tenacious efforts have us going strong. As we look forward to 2021 with more energy and an optimistic outlook, I would like to quote Bill Marriott - "COVID-19 cannot quarantine the human spirit". And hospitality, I say, is a humanitarian approach to business education.

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