Accor and Bhakti Mitra Wisata open hotel school

JAKARTA (JP): Hotel management group Accor Asia Pacific launched yesterday a new hotel training institution run in cooperation with local foundations.

Accor training manager Monique Mager said the school, which does not yet have a name, was formed in cooperation with Accor, Yayasan Bhakti Mitra Wisata and the overseas training institute of the Indonesia-America Council.

The institute offered a different emphasis in its curriculum, she said.

"Existing hotel schools already provide excellent education and we don't want to compete head on with them. We instead want to give this new school a special dimension, with more emphasis on motivation and practice through the new concept of apprenticeship," she said.

Director of International Tourism and Marketing of the Ministry of Tourism, Post and Telecommunications, Acep Hidayat, said the school would run an 18-month program.

He said the first year was organized along the lines of an apprenticeship offering a combination of theory and practice.

Every two-weeks of class will be followed by two weeks of practice at an Accor hotel.

The last six months will be full-time practice.

The school, at the America-Indonesia Council on Jl. S. Parman, West Jakarta, was officially launched by I Gde Ardika, secretary of the Directorate General of Tourism.

"This first class has 25 students. They are required to pay only 50 percent of the fees," said Hidayat, who also chairs Yayasan Bhakti Mitra Wisata.

Mager says that Accor hotels will provide students with uniforms, meals and stipends throughout the program.

"Accor hotels will hire the students after they successfully complete their studies," she said.

Sydney-based AAPC, a subsidiary of French hotel management giant Accor SA, runs 25 properties with nearly 4,000 rooms in Indonesia. It expects to increase the number of hotels under its management here to 45 by 1999.

The group, which was listed on the Australian and Hong Kong stock exchanges in 1993, runs hotels under six names, including Sofitel, Novotel, Mercure and Ibis Quality. (icn)