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:
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.
African Member States met ahead of the General Assembly to plot a course for the future of tourism for the continent.
TOHOLOGY is launching a series of articles “The Hospitality Industry. Companies”. We met with Selim Olmez, Marketing Director at W St. Petersburg, to talk about the history and the concept of the W Hotels chain.
Annual congress of the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry (UFI), industry’s largest global meeting of the year, was held on 31 October – 3 November 2018 in St. Petersburg. Over 450 event professionals representing UFI members met at the ExpoForum centre to review UFI’s work throughout 2018 and confirm plans for the year ahead.