Passion4Hospitality a tiny Odyssey completed.

 I remember sitting in my office when the idea hit me.  Three years ago there were barely any competitions or events that focused on hospitality management students.  It was a simple idea… to create a platform that would motivate students studying hospitality, to create student societies that would engage with industry and enhance their learning outside of the classroom.

I always thought that Passion4Hospitality had its Ithaca within the Institute of Hospitality(IoH) and indeed they were my first port of call, but an IoH internal restructure and the credit crunch meant that the idea would face a few storms and there was a time I thought it would drown…

One of the P4H early friends was Ignite Hospitality who kindly helped with the logo design without asking a penny as they too believed in the idea. The idea also found another friend, the Council for Hospitality Management Education (CHME) when at a conference I presented the concept and every colleague there showed amazing support, it was their support that gave fuel to the effort. 

After that it took a lot of grit and knocking on doors to try and gather the funds needed to give it a shot but this post is all about the conclusion and not about the trip.  Its really about the P4H "Ithaca"… Almost 3 years after that initial effort to get P4H off the ground,  two colleagues from the IoH Philip and Malcolm,  approached me to get my view on how they could make the Institute's Educational Membership Scheme more exciting for students. I presented them with an alternative version of the Passion4Hospitality idea.  A more manageable event  that could carry the spirit of P4H but would allow the Institute to test the waters.  And as such a debate format was born.

The rest as they say is history… two days ago the event took place and four teams from the Universities of: Surrey, London Metropolitan, Oxford Brookes and Thames Valley, battled it out and although the final debate winners where the Thames Valley University, I saw 12 students who had won in confidence, learning and a better appreciation of the industry they study.  I also saw winners in the faces of industry leaders who were either judging or being spectators asking the debating students "killer" questions.

I thank them all, the University of Brighton for allowing me the opportunity to continue this work as well as Helen and Russel for their role in the success of the pilot, the IoH for embracing the idea, the sponsors, the students, the mentors, and the judges, and the Academics and Industry people in the audience that made it such a great event.

I hope that next year there will be far more teams participating and wanted to remind readers that when Odysseus reached his Ithaca, he had more work to do and so does P4H.

It is my hope that one day Passion4Hospitality will reach the vision originally conceived, and that was a platform that engaged with industry and academia at all 3 levels, schools, colleges and universities, but that perhaps is another Troy waiting in the distance

I will always be a friend and an ambassador to Passion4Hospitality and if you work in the industry or study hospitality I really hope you will be a friend of the idea too.