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:
On 12 November SWISSAM hosted the Career Day for representatives of the hospitality industry for the second time in a row. TOHOLOGY took interviews with a few directors participating in the Career Day and also prepared a special photo report about this event.
Michael Pleitgen’s lecture dedicated to wine tasting. Michael Pleitgen has been working in the wine industry for 35 years and he is the founder of Weinakademie Berlin.
International Amadeus Partners Event took place in Skolkovo innovation centre for the second time and brought together top management of Amadeus and leaders of the aviation and tourism business from 20 countries. The main topic of the conference was a paradigm shift in the tourism and aviation industry, the introduction the New Distribution Capability, and a deep-dive into the strategy of digital transformation for successful growth.
The world’s tourism leaders are meeting in St Petersburg for the UNWTO General Assembly this week as the global tourism sector continues to grow in both size and influence. New data from UNWTO shows international tourist arrivals grew by 4% during first 6 months of the year.