Hotel of Excellence project

The university’s hospitality, tourism, events and business management students will have the opportunity to take part in an exciting new project as part of their studies.

The Hotel of Excellence Project is a collaboration between the council, the university and the View hotel in Eastbourne. The project will provide opportunities for undergraduate and postgraduate students. For this academic year (2019/2020) projects include:

• working on two events for the View Hotel who will be donating some of the profits to charities that they support
• working as consultants to deliver a competitor analysis and marketing report for the hotel
• the opportunity to go on placement with the View Hotel to gain professional hands-on experience.

Student and academic volunteers will also work with the hotel and East Sussex County Council to create the world’s first ‘Pop-up Hotel School’. In November school students aged 11 to 14 years will be able to attend the pop-up school to gain basic hospitality skills and find out why a career in hospitality is an exciting and worthwhile strategy for their future.

Councillor David Tutt, Leader of Eastbourne Borough Council, said: “Following the Council’s £54m investment in creating world class conference facilities at the Devonshire Quarter, we are delighted that, working in partnership with The View Hotel, University of Brighton and the East Sussex College Group, the Hotel of Excellence project will contribute to enhancing the skills offer and will provide new opportunities for Eastbourne residents and local students.”

Dr Ioannis Pantelidis, University of Brighton academic lead for the Hotel of Excellence project said: “This is a wonderful opportunity for our students to get hands-on hospitality consultancy experience, become teachers themselves and inspire the next generation of hospitality professionals and raise the bar for the hospitality management benchmarking of the future in East Sussex and beyond.

“I am thrilled to be working with visitor economy pioneers both at the Eastbourne Borough Council and the View Hotel management. It is rare to see so many colleagues so very passionate about hospitality management, the visitor economy and the learning opportunities and well-being of future generations of hospitality leaders.”