News - Inside EHL

“Parking closed!” warned the sign at the entrance of EHL’s parking lot on the morning of May 17.

A special Forum was held at EHL on May 6 on the theme of corporate social responsibility in the hospitality industry, and the need to implement CSR both as a moral necessity and for sound business reasons.

Kimberly Goins (a student in EHL’s Master programme) and David Setzermann (a student in the Diploma in Hotel and Restaurant management programme) are the winners of this year’s Evian Prize for Young Talent.

On 4 June 2010, Ruud J. Reuland, the departing Director of the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL), passed on the torch to Michel Rochat, the former General Director of Higher Education for the Canton of Vaud. After eight years spent at the helm of EHL, Ruud J. Reuland is leaving the School and hopes to take a few weeks of sabbatical leave to be spent with his family before becoming involved with new projects and challenges. Michel Rochat is looking forward to taking over the reins of the oldest hotel school and reinforcing its position of leadership on an international level.

There was a huge crowd at EHL last 21 May to celebrate the success of the 197 students who were graduating from the School’s Bachelor programme - a record number of students for a graduating class!

On May 20, Stéphane Raimbault was invited by the student committee Like Eat for a special culinary event in the School’s gastronomic restaurant.

As an inspirational speaker, Jean-Claude Biver, CEO of Hublot Watch Group, is hard to beat. Find your own ethos, he encouraged students during the “Working Lunch” at EHL on April 13, and live by this and prosper.

Since 6 April EHL has once again begun work to extend the campus and improve the work/study environment for everyone.

Hotel World Asia comprises three unmissable events for regional hospitality industry decision makers in June at The Venetian in Macau.

Within the framework of the Alumni Congress – Brasil 2010 – a discussion panel will be organised at the Sofitel in São Paulo on Saturday, 15 May 2010 at 20h00.

The EPFL, the Clinique de Genolier and Geneva International Airport have all entrusted us with missions, why don’t you?

The fourth edition of the Professional Forum, organised annually by Lausanne Hospitality Research (LHR), was held at EHL on 23 March with approximately one hundred participants.

The last teams where competing today; China, Indonesia, India and Cambodi.

Day 2 on Pudong Expo, four other countries on the competition today and four others to go – 17 March 2010.
First out of the teams today was Singapore, second Malaysia, third Vietnam and the one who closed the day was Thailand.

As we arrived at the Pudong Expo centre we, Elise and I took our responsible tasks in charge with a quick brief from the two different organizers. As Elise had already an experience of the Bocuse d’Or in Stavanjer, Norway, in 2008, she choose to be in charge of the coordination in the VIP lounge with the Chefs and I took the demonstration part, that is held three times a day with different Chefs from Shanghai.

A team of 4 MHA students from the Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) won the 3rd Student Strategic Challenge held at the IHIF in Berlin on 7 March with their project called e-Loyalty. The IHIF is Europe's leading Investment Conference for the hotel industry, attended this year by 1600 senior executives representing owners, CEOs and hotel operators/developers, investors and lenders. The EHL victory in the competition, open to European hotel schools by invitation, was the 3rd in a row.

The second day of the conference (our 4th day in Berlin) was very interesting. The conference started with the first panel addressing where the new “hot spots” for investment are, where investors are most willing to invest and which markets are selling most properties at the moment.

Today the conference began. After a short briefing from the meeting planners, we started to welcome the attendants. We had the pleasure to work with students from Cornell as well as from ESSEC.

We have arrived swiftly at Berlin, despite of the last minute hassle at Geneva Airport (we almost missed the flight as security check took us more than 30 minutes).

As the February 2010 session of EHL’s bi-annual Information and Recruitment Days moves to a close, we can measure its success – including that of the one-day Job Fair, held on February 10, where industry presence tripled in the space of a year!