Title of the talk: Emerging Trends in Hospitality

Professor Peter Briscoe, Chair, Hospitality Management, who also happens to be the Chair, Wine Business of the Vancouver Island University, Canada, visited the Sushant University to deliver a lecture on the Emerging Trends in Hospitality. This audio-visual presentation, though directed primarily towards the hotel management students, actually turned out to be an interesting discourse for the other students pursuing business management studies.

Peter, as he preferred being addressed to, has more than 3 decades of experience in hotels and in academics. He is a perfect mélange of a professional who is not only experienced in hotel operations but also has taught the dynamics of hospitality management to thousands of students. He is a certified Sommelier, a title which still remains but a dream with so many hotel professionals.

The main purpose of Peter’s presentation was to show to the students the best practices being used by renowned hotel chains like Starwood, Marriott, Hilton etc. What Peter emphasized on was that the trend in hospitality is drifting more towards ‘hiring the right people for the right jobs’. The customer needs are changing all the time – they are attaching more importance to being recognized and expect rather a personalized service than the usual as the choice and competition in hotels is increasing day by day. The discerning customers are emphasizing more on being dealt by quality personnel in hotels, restaurants, bars, room service and housekeeping. The audio-visual presentation revealed interesting facts about how the décor and ambience in modern hotels is biased towards simplicity and the ‘Green Concept’. He said the customers also prefer patronizing the hotels which work towards environment protection and believe in the doctrine of Renovate, Recycle and Reuse.

After the presentation, it was an ‘open house’ wherein Peter took questions from the students and answered them to their satisfaction.

Later on, for lunch, the first year students of School of Tourism and Hotel Management, Sushant University treated Peter to an authentic North Indian ‘Thali Lunch’, which he appreciated from the bottom of his heart.