Accor and Bhakti Mitra Wisata open hotel school
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)