“With regard to our industrial training, Gabrielle Thomas, my classmate and I showing a clear preference of visiting a foreign country which is not very crowded and where we could learn hotel operations, we thought Montenegro would be the best choice – a small country with less population, very clean and green and being full of friendly people.” Said Uroosa Khalid, an intern belonging to the 8th Semester of Vatel Hotel and Tourism Business School, Sushant University, Gurgaon.
These young ladies, pursuing the 4-years’ Bachelors in Hotel Management course, chose to not only undergo their 20 weeks’ operational internship in Podgorica, Montenegro, but also chose the same destination to undergo Vatel’s student-exchange programme, which would allow them another 12 months’ stay in that small, quaint but a very picturesque European city. Hotel Hilton Podgorica, located in a small city in Montenegro is where these students spent their time, and enjoyed “Every moment of it” “It is a beautiful city and people enjoy walking here and the number of cars is so very less” says Gabriella, talking about the freshness and energy one gets while staying in a country which is clean, non-polluted and highly eco-friendly.
Hilton Podgorica is an old property, which got almost completely destroyed during the WW-II. It was then restored and refurbished and brought to the status of a new, sprawling spick-and-span property. “The supervisors and the staff here are so helpful and cooperative and are always keen to see that the purpose for which we were here is totally accomplished” say both the girls, expressing satisfaction and happiness.
Working here was very structured and easy. Though initially these girls
understood the Montenegrin way of operations, they were, later on, given supervisory roles to play. “We were treated in the same way in which their regular staff was treated. We got nice uniforms and had all the privileges as if we too were amongst the category of their regular staff. We used to have delicious duty meals in the cafeteria where all staff and executives used to eat. But, having said so, we must say that it wasn’t all that easy and we used to put in real hard work, for which we were praised, usually more than the Vatel students who had visited from other countries. And that is what gave us a great sense of victory.
Learning hotel operations is a peculiar activity that entails more of practical work rather than the usual classroom instruction. “We know that unless we do everything with our own hands, we won’t learn much. Respecting the dignity of labour, we happily accepted all types of jobs and never considered anything to be a low-rated and that’s why we feel, we have learnt everything on-the-job, while doing with it with our own hands. As interns we were not being paid big amounts as stipend, neither did we have any big share of tips but we were happy because the purpose for which we travelled so far away from our country was to learn.
“Living in Montenegro did not give us any problem at all” say the girls. “The country isn’t very expensive and we could afford to go out one in a while and also had the liberty to cook our own food in our peculiar style. The restaurants are expensive but their portions were so large that just one serving sufficed for the both of us” says Uroosa. The public transportation system functions very well and, with our monthly pass, we could visit the country which is so green and picturesque with mountains, valleys and rivers at so many places. The buses and trains, by virtue of less population, were never crowded. We used to live very close to the hotel, at a distance of barely 5 minutes.
We had a single, one-room apartment with attached bath and all amenities and
we were very comfortable. The only challenge we faced is communication because not all the people used to speak in English and at times we used to face a lot of difficulty expressing ourselves. But we soon found a solution to that – we ourselves learnt their language and we could soon manage our way through even with complete strangers. That is the reason we have so many friends in that country and we communicate with them off-and-on. Indian cuisine is very popular in that country. We used to visit Masala art a restaurant owned and operated by Chef Rajesh Sharma.
When erstwhile Yugoslavia disintegrated, the following small countries were formed.
- Serbia
- Croatia
- Bosnia
- Herzgovina
- Macedonia
- Slovania
- Montenegro
