The present scenario of hospitality includes a revolutionary employee branding. The graph of careers in hospitality is rising as the aspirants are moving away from the conventional mode of perceiving it as a back-up solution to one of the most preferred careers.
This change has also accelerated the remunerations and working lifestyles, which has now come on par with other sectors of industry. The finest Indian hotel chains and renowned international hotel brands in the country have already infused dynamism into the industry and are now demanding for global standard hospitality education.
This is where quality hospitality education and international curriculum and methodology at par with the global standard, makes its presence felt. Hospitality education institutions should focus on providing a dynamic education in a global perspective ensuring that aspiring individuals can compete globally.
Our quest to find such an advanced hospitality institution landed us at Indian School of Hospitality (ISH). Below is the conversation with Dilip Puri, Founder & CEO of ISH, who explains how ISH offers a globalized education while also emphasizing on offering skill-oriented and managerial education in various areas of hospitality.
TKR Team: Please brief us about Indian School of Hospitality, its history, and mission & vision.
Mr. Puri: The initial idea for setting up Indian School of Hospitality (ISH) came when I admitted my younger son to Ecole hôtelière de Lausanne in 2013. That’s when I realized that in India, we hotels that are known around the world and a rapidly growing service industry, but we do not have a matching standard of hospitality education. Spotting the gap, I decided to venture into creating a world class hospitality education enterprise. The opportunity to set up ISH has also given me the chance to pursue my passion for teaching, and to finally give back to an industry that has given me so much over the span of my career.
The vision of ISH is to redefine and transform hospitality and culinary education to make it on par with global standards – and put India on the map as a hub for aspiring young hospitality professionals to study. Our mission is to bridge the gaps in the current educational landscape, and to provide exceptional talent to the hospitality industry and promote growth within the sector.
TKR Team: Brief us about your campus and all the academic programs being carried out. Kindly mention their affiliations and accreditations.
Mr. Puri: Our campus is unlike any other in the market. Inspired by the new age spaces being adopted by Google and other leading global companies, we wanted to bring the same concept of giving our students a space that evokes joy and encourages learning. Downstairs, we’ve got one of the largest culinary complexes in India – a training kitchen, bulk kitchen and bakery. We’ve got a student run coffee shop where they learn retail outlet management; a fine dining restaurant for service and modernist culinary techniques. Upstairs, we’ve got our classrooms and lecture theatre equipped with live conferencing technology that gives our students the opportunity to get lectures from leading executives from across the globe.
Our campus is centered around theoretical and practical learning blending seamlessly with one another.
For example – we regularly host events for industry leaders and influencers. If the function is within our fine dining restaurant, it’s our students who curate the menu, prepare the food, and it’s our students who are taking care of the guests as well. They’re actively learning by doing and reinforcing everything they’ve learned in theory classes.
We are proud of our affiliations. We are part of the Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne network of certified schools and offer two programs with them – Bachelors in Hospitality Management (4 years) and Bachelors in Culinary Arts (4 years). We’re also the only college in India to have an academic collaboration with Asia’s leaders in culinary arts, At-Sunrice GlobalChef Academy. This allows us to offer diploma programs in culinary arts and pastry & bakery. Students of these programs spend 9 months with us and then carry on to study and work in Singapore.
For those looking for a career change, one of our most popular programs is an Intensive Certificate in Culinary Arts, which will provide you will everything you need to enter into the culinary world in just 9 months.
TKR Team: After successful course completion, what are the different career options for graduates? How are you assisting them to achieve the same?
Mr. Puri: For hospitality and culinary graduates of today, the world is their oyster. I firmly believe that hospitality will soon replace the BBA as the default choice for undergraduate students. Hospitality and BBA share an almost identical curriculum, with hospitality adding an additional, cutting edge layer of interpersonal and soft skills, as well as invaluable professional experience through the form of internships. By spending almost 20% of the curriculum in a professional working environment, it also helps graduates understand the stream they wish to specialize in for their later years of study. This creates graduates who are business savvy, have incredible people skills, have work experience and can flourish in dozens of streams, including but not limited to hospitality management (HR, finance, marketing, real estate, PR), venue management and event planning, luxury retail & lifestyle services, health & wellness, consultancy, start ups and more.
Culinary graduates can also do so much more than just be chefs if they wish – restaurants, foodtrepreneurship, food writing, food blogging, pop ups, sommeliers, catering, nutrition are just a few options.
TKR Team: Why should people choose Indian School of Hospitality as their preferred hospitality institute? What do you have as an upper hand over others?
Mr. Puri: We’re proud to be a college founded by the industry, for the industry. This means we understand the needs of the industry – and can create talented professionals who can flourish in numerous streams of the landscape.
Our industry insight means our students are studying from world class, up to date curriculums, learning from global hospitality leaders and getting a head start on their career with internships and placements with some of the world’s best brands.
With our industry experienced faculty and international affiliations, our students are gaining an invaluable entrepreneurial mindset, can-do attitude and charismatic personality to give them everything they need to flourish in whatever they choose to do.
Choosing to study at ISH gives you opportunities and an environment you won’t find anywhere else. With our entire campus decked out in the latest technology, based around practical learning centers – students are getting professional skills long before they even enter the industry.
With our international affiliations, our faculty is constantly evolving and improving their teaching methodology up to speed with global standards, meaning our students are getting an international level of education, here in the heart of India.
Top that off with our industry connect giving us access to some absolutely invaluable internship and placement opportunities; our students are getting the best kick start to their career they can find.
TKR Team: Kindly highlight the future prospects of the Indian School of Hospitality.
Mr. Puri: Through everything we do, one of the most important parts of our mission is to ‘demystify’ hospitality and what hospitality education entails. ISH aims to raise more awareness surrounding the career possibilities found in hospitality, what makes hospitality such a flexible education and the benefits of pursuing it in today’s world.
To aid the demystification, ISH has built a strong connect with schools across the region and uses it to introduce more students to the rich and exciting world that awaits them in hospitality. Through this, ISH will be able to produce more talented graduates for the industry and help foster positive growth for both students and brands region wide.
In addition to this, ISH aims to expand this awareness across more territories and become the prime hub for hospitality education across Africa, the Indian diaspora and neighboring Asian regions.
