Hospitality school NZMA is raising the bar in hotel management training. Thanks to a newly-launched diploma, students will soon be able to graduate with a bachelor’s degree from a world class hotel school – without having to leave Auckland.
The Level 7 Diploma in Tourism and Hotel Management prepares students for senior leadership roles specifically relevant to tourism and hotels – a sector which is booming in New Zealand and around the world. Those who successfully complete Levels 5 through to 7 at NZMA will also be awarded a Bachelor of Arts in Events and Hotel Management from the revered Hotel Tourism and Management Institute (HTMi) in Switzerland.
The qualification is a huge coup for NZMA, which is part of the ACG Tertiary & Careers Group, New Zealand’s leading private tertiary provider. Divisional General Manager for the Group Mark Worsop says the new offering will ensure NZMA stays in the vanguard of hospitality training in New Zealand.
“Gaining a hotel management degree from Switzerland is considered by many to be the pinnacle of training in this field, so this is a significant point of difference for NZMA and a great international endorsement of our quality,” he said.
The programme has just been granted approval by NZQA and will start in July at NZMA’s state-of-the-art hospitality and cookery facility in Sylvia Park. Plans are in the pipeline to roll it out at other ACG Tertiary & Careers campuses in the future.
“We expect this programme to be extremely popular as it opens up so many options both for those already working in the industry, and those just starting out. As well as the potential to gain a degree at NZMA or AUT, the programme can also be taken as a standalone Level 7 diploma. Students with a relevant Level 6 qualification, or one to two years of work experience as a supervisor in a hotel or tourism environment, can complete it in just 40 weeks.”
The diploma equips students with a wide range of analytical and practical management skills and covers services marketing management, tourism for hotels, tourism management, strategic management and leadership in the service industry. In addition, students will complete a research paper relevant to New Zealand’s tourism and hospitality sector. There are also opportunities to complete the programme overseas.
“Thanks to our partnership with HTMi, graduates have the option of heading to Switzerland for the last year of their degree, which is also pretty exciting.”
Former NZMA hospitality student Yulia Besha transferred to HTMi at the end of last year to complete her 600 hour internship, the final stage of NZMA’s Diploma in Applied Hospitality Management Level 6. She has now been accepted onto their Manager in Training programme and is one of just ten HTMi students to be chosen to work at the Rio Olympics in August.
