An open letter about hotel school rankings

Open letter - an opinion concerning a recently published ranking of Swiss Hotel schools.

I would like to make some observations about rankings in education and specifically some comments about the ranking of Hotel schools, mandated and paid for by Laureate, owner of Glion and Les Roches, amongst many other universities.

How seriously can I take a survey, paid for by an owner of “for profit” hotel management schools measuring what “hiring managers” say of a non-published list of so called “best hotel schools in the world”?

With increased competition, global offers in education, mobility of students and other different aspects in choosing the “best education” for a particular person, rankings are becoming an important tool for the future student. I do recognise that a ranking is an important marketing instrument for all providers, obviously including hotel schools.

Who is mandating and paying to conduct rankings, what is being measured, who is being surveyed and which schools are being presented as a choice or better benchmarked?

Should the ranking include: quality of students, faculty, facilities, programme contents, research and publications, partnerships, alumni networks, career services?

The ranking, mandated by Laureate surveys the opinion of “hiring managers” who were able to chose from a list of 40 schools worldwide. The question which then immediately arises, is, what exactly is a “hiring manager” and who chose the sample? This is as important as the question, who chose the schools and which were the 40 schools included in the survey? (only the top 10 schools were published). I would therefore like to ask this question, because the study indicates that “a list of 40 schools providing University level programmes was produced”, and surprisingly the ranking lists our “Institut Hôtelier César Ritz” (IHCR) as 9th in the world. Great news for our students, faculty and other stakeholders, but there is a problem here because the people who selected the 40 schools probably did not know that the IHCR, part of “César Ritz” Colleges (CRC) does not, and never has offered a University level degree. Such degrees, Bachelor and Master Degrees are offered at CRC, but at the Brig campus the University Centre “César Ritz”!


The 10th ranked school, IHMI/ ESSEC in Paris offers only a MBA like hospitality Master programme, accepting a select group of 30 students each year and being ranked as one of the top Business schools in Europe. What is being benchmarked? Diploma, Bachelor, Master Programmes? A Master programme graduating 30 students per year, entering the business in management positions compared with some of the listed schools, graduating 300/400 diploma and undergraduate students, looking for management training or entry positions?

I do not know how many hotel schools exist in the world, but given that there must be hundreds, if not thousands, it would therefore seem that ranking is more complex than simply taking 40 schools with such different programmes, different nationalities amongst the students and benchmarking them with “employment managers” from around the world.

A U.S. website (http://www.library.uiuc.edu/) has a comprehensive list of various international rankings with a variety of quality criteria. It is also of interest to read first “caution and controversy” about rankings and to end by reading (by clicking on) “humor and satire”. The site provides links to many articles which have been published about “rankings”.

To conclude, the ranking of hotel schools, mandated by a company which owns and manages at least two hotel schools in Switzerland themselves, and are as well owners / shareholders of hotel schools in at least 4 other countries, ranks a very limited number of schools (40) of which 10 are publicly known. The people who actually ranked these 40 schools were “hiring managers” from all over the world.
I believe that this ranking is a good marketing tool, but not more. Should these schools be so competitive, it must be hard to gain admission?

Confused?
I guess you must be confused! I therefore suggest that you check out which is the best hotel school for you! Why not visit us and our competitors, spend a couple of days, take classes, talk to students and faculty, check out the career services, student activities and do your own ranking of programme, value for money, career prospects, alumni, admission standards, student mix (Europe - Asia) class sizes, faculty, research and publications?

Yours sincerely


Martin Kisseleff
President “César Ritz” Colleges
http://www.ritz.edu/

N.B. We do not claim to be the worlds best Hotel schools, simply because we have not participated (nor have we been asked to) in such a ranking exercise. At this moment in time, there is only one Swiss hospitality programme quality control agency and this is ASEH. Yes, ASEH is private, but controlled by the Swiss Hotel Association, Gastrosuisse and the Gastro and Hotel Union. Who else could establish quality outcomes for hospitality employees / managers? ASEH does not rank schools, but controls the quality and recognises that all member Swiss hotel schools are different – the future student has to decide which is the best school for you! Good luck.