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Hotel giant eyes LAU hospitality management students

InterContinental Hotels Group presents LAU students with career opportunities during a visit to LAU Beirut.

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LAU’s Hospitality Management Department hosts an 18-member delegation from the InterContinental Hotels Group for a student-prepared lunch on March 18.

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Nicola Evirett, IHG MENA talent resourcing manager, gives a presentation to students after lunch to introduce the company and present career opportunities.

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Dr. Said Ladki, chair of LAU's Management/Accounting Department (standing), welcomes the delegation before lunch is served.

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Haitham Mattar, IHG area general manager (left), says his team was "blown away" by the modern facilities inside LAU's hospitality lab.

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LAU students prepare lunch for the IHG delegation.

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The IHG team that visited LAU Beirut.

Click on any photo above to view all six images.

An 18-member delegation from the InterContinental Hotels Group paid a visit to LAU Beirut in a bid to recruit graduating hospitality management students for thousands of management positions opening up at IHG-run hotels worldwide, on March 18.

“In the next three years, we’re going to need over 10,000 employees in different capacities,” said IHG area general manager, Haitham Mattar. “In Lebanon, we’re negotiating with investors to build new hotels across the country and that’s great news for students who are going to be looking for jobs in our industry.”

The IHG team was given a tour of the hospitality facilities at the campus, before being served lunch, prepared by students, inside the hospitality lab.

“It is extremely impressive to see the setup that you have in this facility,” Mattar said. “Our minds are blown with what we’ve seen.”

Dr. Said Ladki, chair of LAU’s Hospitality Management/Accounting Department, addressed the IHG representatives before lunch was served, and explained how the program was born in the 1990s to help rebuild the country’s economic infrastructure following the civil war, by training students in the hospitality industry.

“We know we are the best,” Ladki said, after describing the program’s state-of-the-art labs and software students use for training.

Following lunch, Mira Sinno, IHG area training manager in Lebanon, and Nicola Everitt, MENA talent resourcing manager, attempted to lure students to the company by using a PowerPoint presentation to highlight some of IHG’s most luxurious hotels, while describing its mission and goals.

“I, and I’m sure everyone else who works for InterContinental, are pretty proud to work for our group,” Evirett said. “We’re very passionate.”

During the presentation, the IHG representatives announced a new program recently initiated for graduating hospitality students in the region to rotate between three eight-month management positions at different IHG brand hotels across various countries in the Middle East and Africa.

The two-year MENA Graduate Future Leaders Program was first launched last year, and accepted a total of six students from the region. Evirett said 18 students will be selected for this year’s program which will start in November.

IHG operates roughly 4,400 hotels across the globe, under several brands that include the InterContinental, the Holiday Inn and Holiday Inn Express, the Crowne Plaza, Candlewood Suites, Hotel Indigo and Staybridge Suites. The group owns only one percent of those hotels and manages 14 percent, while the remaining 85 percent are franchised.

For more information on the graduate program or other career opportunities with IHG, please visit this page.

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