Tour de Force
Wednesday 7 November 2012
As it goes from strength to strength, the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management team continues to travel the globe searching for the best that academia and industry has to offer …
The UK’s number one School of Hospitality and Tourism Management at the University of Surrey has boosted its number of staff over the last few months, recruiting more top academics and industry practitioners. The School already enjoys an excellent reputation for research, influencing policy and tackling the big issues in the industry. New staff joining the school are adding to this body of knowledge and giving students access to cutting-edge thinking.
Over recent months four new academics have joined the team. Their research interests include hospitality and capital markets, migrant workers in the hospitality industry, new product development, organizational culture and hotel acquisition strategy, sociology in tourism, anthropology in tourism and tourism planning.
Marco Ciraulo brings extensive experience of launching and managing major restaurants, hotels and bars to the School and will be teaching Hospitality Management and Hotel Operations. William Meyers has worked for blue chip companies such as Goldman Sachs and JP Morgan in hotel finance and will be sharing this expertise as a new Tutor in Hospitality. Dr Hania Janta joins us from her post as Senior Lecturer in Human Resources and Employability in the School of Tourism at Bournemouth University, where she lectured in People and Performance, Event Design and Production as well as Research Methods, and takes the post of Senior Lecturer in Hospitality and Events. Lecturer in Tourism Development Dr Jingjing Yang has worked in the tourism development business in China, following academic studies in Beijing and New Zealand.
Surrey has a strong emphasis on preparing its students for careers in this fast paced industry and all our undergraduate degrees include a paid professional placement training year. This year, Surrey students are heading off around the world to spend a year working in leading resorts and hotels from Florida to Hong Kong as well as for prestigious industry bodies such as the World Travel and Tourism Council. To help prepare them for the experience, and for a successful career after graduation, the school has recruited leading practitioners to ensure that students are exposed to the latest thinking and good practice.
Professor Graham Miller, Head of the School of Hospitality and Tourism Management emphasized the importance of recruiting industry insiders, “Hospitality and tourism at Surrey has always been able to attract the top academics in the world to help our students think critically about the subject. I am delighted with our recent excellent recruits from all around the world. We are able to combine this academic knowledge with really current industry experience through our new tutors, to ensure students can succeed in getting jobs and then be able to move quickly into management positions.”
If you’d like to know more about studying with the School of Hospitality and Tourism, take a look at our range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes.
