Last week, Rebecca Cridge and Mhairi Strachan, Hospitality Management students were invited to attend the Institute of Hospitality London Branch Aspiring Manager awards dinner.

The dinner was hosted at The Langham Hotel, London and was attended by students, Hospitality Managers, General Managers and Directors of companies representing some of our top hotels and suppliers.

Each organisation attending can take a table at the dinner and nominate their Aspiring Manager winner who receives membership to the Institute of Hospitality, a luxury weekend break and this year a four day Management Development course run by People 1st Training. The Aspiring Manager winners are those individuals that have been recognised for giving an outstanding contribution to the development of the organisation they work for, and demonstrated a commitment to their colleagues and customers.

At the dinner the Guest of Honour was Suzanne Jackson, Executive Director for the Hospitality Guild who gave a very inspirational speech on her views of hospitality. She highlighted that we need to be focusing on our future hospitality managers, nurturing and developing them by not only promoting the industry in schools, but also to ensure that our current hospitality team members are given the continuing professional development they need to become our future managers, which is what the Institute of Hospitality stands for.

Students Mhairi and Rebecca were invited to attend the event by Monica Or from Star Quality Consultancy. Monica commented on meeting Mhairi and Rebbeca “These two ladies are definitely ones to keep an eye on and I have no doubt in the future they too will become Aspiring Manager winners for whichever organisation they end up working at.”

Mhairi commented that “that it was great being an “ambassador” for Bournemouth University and many of the companies were truly interested in our course content”