Ecole H

Set in the idyllic newly developed Lavasa Hill City, LEH offers the academic certification of the Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne (Ecole H), Switzerland — a world-class hospitality institute Spread over four sylvan acres at a height of 3,000 ft above sea-level, in the idyllic newly developed hill station of Lavasa, Maharashtra, sited 200 km from Mumbai and 50 km from Pune on the highway linking the state’s premier industrial hubs, Ecole Hôtelière Lavasa (LEH) describes itself as a “hospitality management college of excellence”. It offers academic certification by Ecole Hoteliere de Lausanne (EHL, estb. 1893), arguably the world’s oldest and most respected hotel and hospitality management college. Under an agreement with Ecole H, the Lavasa-based LEH (estb. 2009) offers higher secondary school-leavers a four-year wholly residential undergraduate hospitality management degree programme with the option to transfer credits to EHL after two years and complete their degree in Switzerland. Moreover, students are guaranteed 24 weeks of internship with prestigious hospitality brands across India to acquire hands-on experience. Comments Prof. Michel Rochat, director general of Ecole H Lavasa, Switzerland, who  inaugurated LEH’s new 67,000 sq.ft state-of-the-art campus in Lavasa with capacity to host 600 students on August 19: “EHL’s mission is to develop talent for the global hospitality industry — India included — by transferring our knowledge and expertise to LEH. We are committed to establishing new paradigms in hospitality education by training LEH faculty, designing the academic curriculum, and assuring the quality of infrastructure and education provided through regular audits.” According to LEH’s high-calibre  faculty, the four-year degree programme of the institute is the most thorough and technology-enabled hotel and hospi-tality training course offered in India. “Based on modern paradigm concepts such as fulfilled employees and comprehensive customer satisfaction, our curriculum requires students to research, present and apply the syllabus to real situations through case studies, live practicals, and project assignments. Our focus is to put students through a rigorous self-learning experience supported by practical training. The programme is intensive and 5 percent of our parent ELH students drop out annually,” says Rony Kurien, alumnus of the Symbiosis Institute of Business Management, Pune, with marketing, international business, retail and teaching experience of 24 years in Australia, UK, Singapore and Malaysia, and currently chief operating officer of LEH. Quite evidently the mumbai-based Lavasa Corporation Ltd — a subsidiary of the infrastructure construction behemoth Hindustan Construction Co. (annual revenue: Rs.8,150 crore) which built Lavasa Hill City from ground up — has spared no expense to construct LEH as per EHL’s world-class standards and specifications. The campus offers technology intensive multimedia classrooms, study rooms, a wine tasting lab, amphitheatre, auditoriums, a cyberhotel (for students to become familiar with the latest technology), housekeeping labs and training and demo kitchens, store rooms and mock guest rooms. LEH also provides students a separate residential area comprising 60 double rooms with attached bathrooms. As a first in India and in line with EHL specifications, students have access to four distinctive cuisine restaurants on campus and luxury and budget…