Every good thing comes to an end so did this Conference held by the UNWTO.TedQual

Finally the Conference came to an end after 3 days of informational and educaitonal learning sessions not only for the delegates who represented different colleges all over Europe, but also for all the students who attended the seminars. After the overwhelming award given to Sacha and Mr. George from Brussels, there were few discussion on the future plan for next year including the on-going Africa project as well. The co-ordinators of UNWTO.TedQual Ms. Ibanez (the Manager of the programme) and Ms.Abusleme (the communication co-ordinator), as well as the other delegates were quite impressed by our college, and said this is one of the best in Europe, which was an appreciation to all the Staff, Faculties and Students. As per the students' point of view, who were directly or indirectly connected to this conference, I would say that, " This conference has given us such an amazing experience, not only by having a chance to take responsibility and do good by yourself, but also knowing and learning well from others. Ended the day with lots of business card exchanges, some pictures and wine.

Way to GO SACHA!!!!!!!!!!!!

Hearty congratulations to our fellow student 'Sacha Guillemin' who won the award for the best presentation from the conference held by UNWTO.TedQual hosted alongwith and at César Ritz Colleges in Brig, Switzerland.  An amazing opportunity for Sacha to not only join and work with the UNWTO.TedQual but is also going to represent the college. It is a matter of great proud that Sacha has recieved this opportunity. He has also been selected to be in a project with other international students to share his knowledge all over the world.

Way to Go Sacha!!!

'Turismo de Portugal', an organization working with UNWTO.TedQual

 Mrs. Cristina Duque from Tourismo de Portugal presented to us how in their organization which being national tourism authority in the Ministry of economy, inculcates innovation and development and helps to develop education and training of the human resources in the tourism sector. They organized a network between 16 schools with 3, 339 students to provide vocational education for young students and professionals. The important thing is that the program includes the subjects that relates to the industry like front office, food production, hotel management accommodations, etc. and as well offer opportunities to try hands on experience on such subjects. in practice like workshops in restaurant opened for public where the students are preparing and serving the food and the earning goes to the college for financial help to the institution. Another important and interesting thing was opening of the practical hotel in Lisbon, boutique hotel next to the school where students will be trained by the staff and have their duties, which is one of the extent to which an institution can get to provide hands on training of what students have learned.

The professional and personal project of the students

Mr. Baudin from La Rochelle Business School in France presented us today the Humancite programme.The
program was created by Daniel Peyron General Director as a “special internship”.  In 2004 program became a part of the curriculum which lasts 3-5 months and has humanitarian, social and civic mission and now there were 370 humacite missions.Students went to Kenya, Morocco, India, Vietnam, USA, Africa and other countries. Before, the students have to be prepared by special courses like “humanitarian activities”, pre-projects and of course have all that make their trip safe. It is very well planned program, supervised by the school and special organizations. 

The program like humacite helps students to see another side of the world where not everything is perfect and opportunities are limited, to see people suffering and then experience great chance to help them. La Rochelle helps the students on other dimension of Human aspects. Teaches to make money but not at any price and be social and corporate responsible. If at the beginning students are not very appreciate this then after the experience they say to the school “thank you” and happy that they had this unforgettable experience.

Taking leadership roles as 'Professionals'

Another spectacular live-project presentation presented by our students, Irina Usenko, Teodora Lyuleva, Joshua Tiong about how they planned the marketing and operating strategy for 2 hotels in Bulgaria by 'Best Western'. The team acted like a real consultancy company, learned a lot for the past 3 months and has 3 more months to complete new tasks such as: Logo, Renaming, Mission Statement, Vision, an implementation plan and a Marketing Budget. The opportunity given by the college and the hotel was immense for the students. Of course like most of the real businesses, they too had some problems in the initial time of the project, but with proper communication, enthusiasm and the zeal to do something among the students they worked it out and came out with amazing results. They presented a lot of recommendations to the hotels, and they have another term left to work on this project to help the organizations with technical things like logos, Mission and Vision statements etc.

'Not just grades, a lot more than that" - right way to judge students

'Understand the students'- is what Mr.George Ubbelhode from Brussels Business Institute, Belgium said. Be updated with the students, know how they are, see what they want to learn and research how you can plan the classes/lectures so as to maintain a balance between, learning, enjoyment, team work activities and discussions. The lectures should be planned well before-hand, and over all development is something on which light should be put on. In this fast changing world, 'current' becomes 'past' very soon, so its important for educators to be updated to provided the knowledge that will be useful for them. Lastly he also put in the thought along with Ms.Loreto that judging students just based on his/her grades has become a conventional and old way, the new way, which the UNWTO.TedQual also follows is to see the over all development of the student, like his/her leadership roles, his self confident, his thinking capability and motivation and so on.

A nice presentation which was directed towards the other colleague Lecturers and Professors, but was also interesting for students to know how important it is being student and giving their contribution.

An amazing end to the second day of the UNWTO.TedQual conference

After a day full of informaitonal, educational and learning sessions with presentations from the students and the delegates of UNWTO.TedQual from all over Europe, it was an amazing ending session of the day with a session of 'wine-tasting' along with one the college's professor, Mr. Oritz.
An informaitonal session on how the wines are, how they are made, what are the processes, the differences and lots more. An experience which most of us would remember for a long time, and the session with Mr.Ortiz was  enjoyable which rejeauvinated all of us to be prepared for yet another day of enthusiastic session today.

Student’s Industry Project in relation with “GOOGLE”

Feasibility and usage of Internet Marketing is what our student, Thomas Auerbach worked on for his project in relation to increasing the business of a hospitality organization through online bookings. When we open up ‘Google’, we just type in the word that we are looking for and in seconds thousands of results just appear on the screen, but have you ever thought how important are these words that we type in? For us it’s a regular word that we type in to search for, but for people who study the behavior of customers online, it’s really a big thing. Thomas took this idea as his Industry Project; he studied the keywords which people like us use online, mainly to search for hospitality accommodations specifically in Germany. Using this study he did the research and implied such ‘keywords’ to link it to his family- run hotel,  so that his hotel could be in the first twenty searches provided by “Google” and astonishingly he also found the results in less than just 2 months, since his booking (online) increased to a greater extent and thus his research was a success and a reward to himself and his business.

Innovative project presented by students for "Mommor Lodge"

A luxury lodge with social responsibility
Diwidgi Valiente (Panama), Barbara Gehler (Switzerland) and Wilhelm Wenig (Germany), students at César Ritz Colleges presented their Mommor Lodge and Spa project to the UNWTO.TedQual participants. It is little said that the audience was very impressed with their social project!
The project, semi-finalist at the international Société Générale “Citizen Act” and fourth at the Bourse d’Evian competition imagines a boutique luxury lodge in Panama. Located on the immaculate shores of the Panama coast and in the heart of the Kuna community, only 30 minutes away from Panama City, the lodge has something even more special: It has a social responsibility. No profits for the owners, but an investment for the development of the local community.
An innovative project and a model for the world!

'Saying' and 'Doing'

In India, agricultural tourism is a field which is almost untouched. People say, something should be done for agro-tourism, and that this field of tourism should definitely be dealt with, but hardly anyone did so.

One César Ritz Colleges student, Avantikka Raghunandan, did her Industry Project (IP) on this subject, to develop Agro-Tourism. She not only did take the subject seriously, but also did everything to make sure she had enough resources and information to make appropriate and just statements and advices. She contacted the organization that dealt with Agro-tourism in India and also did field work which included questioning guests from hotels in India and knowing their preferences and perceptions on Agro-tourism.

Her wok was rewarded, as her project was selected by the I-CHIE (International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education) to be presented at their Conference in Amsterdam. For more information on the programme to be held in Amsterdam Click Here

Dealing with the Gen-Y

Understanding students is as important as educating them.

Not all team members are same, and in the same way not all students are the same. Each one is different and there might not be just one way to get to conclusions or results, there are more ways, and to work as a team along with the students, it is important to respect, value and follow these different characteristics.

Synergy in terms of collaboration of different people is more important, as in reality no one is self sufficient in terms of providing professional work, people have to work together.  Creativity has to be encouraged, and it should be continued while providing appropriate rewards for the same, not necessarily monetary but the kind that may be valuable for the people involved.

So, how does one have to teach to new generations, the “Gen-Y”? “old ways” of motivation do not work any longer with this generation, understanding the students is the key and often, the solution comes through creativity according to George Ubbelohde from Brussels Business Institute in Belgium.

Students planned the entire marketing strategy for a hotel in Iceland!

Usmaan and Thelma, presented how they planned the marketing strategy for the 3-star family-owned Hotel in Iceland, “Hotel Kelir”. Components like analyzing, planning, forecasting, creative thinking, planning the workforce, budgeting, image building, etc, were thought of being elements of theoretical teaching. With the co-operation of Academic Director, John Swarbrooke, who is also the lecturer for Marketing classes at César Ritz Colleges, and their enthusiasm, the students formed a voluntary team and have put together all the above mentioned elements to plan the marketing strategy for the Hotel by themselves. Congratulations to all students who participated in the project!

Real-life projects interests the members of the UNWTO.TedQual Conference

Real-life projects that really make a difference!
Based on similar concepts previously expressed by Professor John Swarbrooke, who touched based on the importance of real-life projects for students, Professor Dr Helmut Wachowiak from the International University of Applied Sciences - Bonn lectured about “Using real world consultancy projects to aid students learning”.
Students have all interest in participating in such projects according to Prof Wachowiak, who insisted on the learning outcomes, bringing students the skills that regular courses outline. Real-world projects allow students to put the learned skills into practice. Students work in groups on several projects, including developing a sustainable strategic development of a German nature park region or working on the impact of FIFA world cup on the number of visitors generated to a certain region. These projects create an invaluable mix of research activities for the students, therefore also bringing an academic approach. Students will use programmes, such as SPSS or Excel to analyze the data collected.
 

“The role of Education in Developing Leaders for the Global Tourism Industry”

In front of the UNWTO.TedQual Conference participants, students and César Ritz Colleges lecturers, Professor John Swarbrooke delivered a passionate presentation on “The role of Education in Developing Leaders for the Global Tourism Industry” to open the second day of the 1^st UNWTO.TedQual annual Event Europe.

Professor Swarbrooke insisted on the role that the Academicians hold in educating students by giving them some independence in their projects to let them express their creativity. By doing so, the students will develop their leadership and entrepreneurship skills, whereas if students are too monitored, they might hand in a perfectly fine project, but will miss on the real experience.

Finishing on recommendations, Professor Swarbrooke explained his interest in shorter programmes, allowing students to keep in mind what they learned, and also in offering specialized programmes, especially for Master Degrees.

UNWTO.TedQual Conference Day 2!

For the second day of the UNWTO.TedQual Conference, César Ritz Colleges will be hosting presentations by students as well as by renowned international Professors from César Ritz Colleges and from other UNWTO.TedQual Network Members.

As of 5pm, Mr Eric Nanchen, Director of the foundation for a sustainable development of mountain regions, State of Valais, will be talking about how the “Agenda 21” was implemented into 16 initiatives taken by the State of Valais in regards to sustainable development.

The “Agenda 21” is a comprehensive plan of action to be taken globally, nationally and locally by organizations of the United Nations System, Governments, and Major Groups in every area in which human impacts on the environment. The plan was adopted by more than 178 Governments at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development (UNCED) held in Rio de Janeiro in 1992.

Shortly after Mr Nanchen’s presentation will be the long awaited tasting of Valais wines with Mr George Ortiz, followed by the Conference dinner and drinks at the student bar “Chaos”.

The trend says it “The Future lies in WWW”

The students showcased the websites generated by them. One of the students Sacha Guillemin from Switzerland created an online blog, which not only had his CV online, but had a lot of other information as well, like his interests, his objectives and many others. The main aim is to be with the modern world and still be outstanding, CV has become a conventional way to convey a person’s summary, but now with the available technological resources it has become possible not only to show your plain data-form information, but also to be more interactive by adding features like video, music, website links and more. Creativity has no limits and that’s what pushes students of the GEN-Y to present themselves in the most unique way through such blogs. Students, Ekaterian Alexeeva and Alistair Packham introduced their project: internationally selling Swiss wines, showcasing their ability to create websites that are proto-type, and can be used to make websites for companies to sell products online, by using free open source softwares.

TedQual is now UNWTO.TedQual!

                     

TedQual which was just a certification by United Nations  is now a programme and is named now as UNWTO.TedQual. Loreto Ibanez  the manager of UNWTO.TedQual programme explained the new direction taken by this growing United Nations programme. The certification was created initially to ensure improvement in the quality, competitiveness and sustainability of the tourism sector through excellence in education and training. This mainly deals with the way the institutions run with their core interests and to know if such institutions run along with the principles which are laid by the UNWTO.TedQual. The accreditation by UNWTO.TedQual is not just like the one that an institution gets from a governing body of any country, but is genuinely different and special. UNWTO.TedQual mainly concentrates on the way the students are taught and if the students are made more available to the industry and how leadership qualities and ethical values generated in students during the education tenure.

Right inside the Meeting room!

The Conference has begun. The first scheduled programme was the "Speed Dating", a kind of forum, where different delegates from different Universities introduced themselves in front of the remaining members, discussed about their school, college, courses that they offer, and the various problems or limitations they have come across. It was not a lecture-like meeting, but a very interactive one, where participants really showcased the importance of how to make their students more industry oriented and efficient to take up their leadership roles for tomorrow!

The UNWTO.TedQual Conference kicks off on Monday!

The 1st UNWTO.TedQual Annual Event Conference kicks off on Monday! A total of 18 professors from 13 universities from all around Europe participate in this 3-day conference. Further, we will be welcoming three UNWTO.Themis colleagues too.
An interesting programme awaits the participants right on the first day of the conference. Immediately after the introduction of the different institutions, the UNWTO will present its regional programme for Africa, followed by the first student presentation by Ekaterina Alexeeva, Sacha Guillemin and Alistair Packham from César Ritz Colleges Switzerland. César Ritz students will showcase their research on “Student generated websites using open source software", and how it can be used by the students in future.

Stay updated with The UNWTO.TedQual Conference

Stay updated with the latest happening during the UNWTO.TedQual Conference! This blog will be updated with pictures, details, information and more "live" from Brig. If you have any suggestions, comments, messages or information to share please feel free to comment as this is an open forum!