On 1 October, 2012, a new SWISSAM business school in the hospitality industry officially opened its doors to students. Students of all programs (Hospitality Management – undergraduate/postgraduate and Culinary Arts & Management) took part in the official assembly, had a look at the classrooms and listened to an introductory lecture about their future profession. To celebrate the start of the first academic year, TOHOLOGY prepared a special report so that everyone would, at least for a moment, be able to imagine themselves as a student of the industry one faces daily while visiting restaurants or staying in hotels.
The Rector of the school, Walter Spaltenstein, delivered the opening speech before the new school year. As it was the second time he had opened this kind of school, the launch of this project was a particularly important event for Mr. Spaltenstein. For 20 years, Walter Spaltenstein was President of a business school in Lucerne (Switzerland). Now the time had come to share his knowledge with students in St. Petersburg.
Next spoke the Academic Dean Roger-Peter Weizenegger. Mr. Weizenegger started his speech with his memory of standing at the entrance to a hotel school in Switzerland many years ago, with knowledge awaiting him just as it awaits today's students...
Prior to the red tape cutting ceremony, the floor was given to Dmitry Shubin, General Manager of Sokos Hotel Olympia Garden. Sokos Hotels in St. Petersburg are among the employing partners of SWISSAM business school.
Walter Spaltenstein gives Yana Tsyplakova the first student card:
The school is open!
80 students began their studies.
The Rector and staff of the business school gave a tour of the classrooms.
The party continued in one of the culinary studios.
There were welcome words from industry experts:
And a few more pictures from that day:
Hilton Worldwide Corporation has announced the opening of a new Hampton by Hilton Saint Petersburg ExpoForum hotel (Russia), to be located on the territory of ExpoForum Convention & Exhibition Centre. Let's have a look at the specific character of the project and take the chance to view the hotel both from land and from air.
In the autumn, St. Petersburg was visited by Swiss tennis player Stanislas Wawrinka. Here is an interview that Swiss school students took part in with the tennis celebrity and later illustrated with photographs from Stanislas’ performances at the St. Petersburg Open.
St. Petersburg hosted the festival of short fashion films “A Shaded View on Fashion Film”. We were attracted by the fact that the director's movie was shot at the hotel.
Sports and event tourism is a rapidly growing sector of the global travel industry. TOHOLOGY continues writing reports about important, popular or interesting international events. Today it’s time for ATP tennis tournament St. Petersburg Open 2012.