I was delighted to organise and host the Institute of Hospitality London’s 8th Annual Student Forum yesterday at The Dickens Inn, St Katherine’s Dock with the theme of the day “Hospitality is more than just Hotels”. We had over 130 students attend from Westminster Kingsway College, The Edge Hotel School, City College Norwich, London College UCK, University of Surrey, University of Portsmouth, University of Brighton, University of West London and Newham College.

The day was opened my Mark Angela CEO for SSP UK and Ireland as he welcomed our students and talked about SSP and his career.

We then had a panel discussion on “The Graduate Employment Market” and our Chair Ioannis Pantelidis put our panelists through their paces. The panel was made up of Melanie Stacey, Global Graduate Programme Manager from Merlin Entertainments, Anthony Pender, Director of Yummy Pubs, Ian Campbell, Club Secretary for The Caledonian Club, Jose Ruiz, HR Director for the Shangri La at The Shard and Jackie Clark from Head of Resourcing for SSP UK and Ireland. The discussion left our students with some great tips of what to do to impress employers and stand out from the crowd.

The students then heard from Ben McEwan, Sales Executive at Baxter Storey as he spoke about his career from “Student to Business Leaeder” and he left  students with some great leadership tips!

After lunch the students were then introduced to Brett Lord, Owner of Waldegraves and Cosways Family Holiday Parks with some motivational music to set the session off as he talked about their “Award Winning Formula” of how he built up his business from a farmland plot to a family holiday resort. As you will see from my previous blog Waldegraves won the Best Holiday Park and overall Best Hospitality Venue 2013 at the Essex Tourism and Hospitality Awards.

Anthony Pender from Yummy Pubs  then gave a very inspirational talk on “Lessons in Entrepreneurship” as he explained about how he set up his company which kept the students enthralled.

It was then the turn for Joel Flagg, General Manger for The Palace Hotel which is part of The Puma Hotels Collection and he spoke on the topic of “The Art of Social Networking to boost your career”. One of his top tips was to set a google alert for yourself to see what is being mentioned about you in social media.

The day ended with students being told about Mentoring from The Savoy Society and the Institute of Hospitality London‘s Coaching Programme. Students were invited to send in a one minute video pitch on “How having a Hospitality Professional coach them would be a benefit to them personally and professionally”. This was then also opened up for student to do a live pitch.  From all the brave souls that stood up in front of their peers, lecturers and industry guest, 5 will be selected to have one of the Institute of Hospitality’s Aspiring Manger Award winners or London Committee member coach them for free for six months from January to June – watch this space to find out more!

The students then had time to mingle with our guests and employers and a surprise visit from Cyrus Todiwala OBE, from Cafe Spice Namaste ended the day on an inspirational high for our students. Overall it was a very successful event.