As the second semester of the 3continents3semesters journey has come to an end with the wrapping up of the term at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University’s School of Hotel and Tourism Management, it is time to say goodbye to the city that has grown to become my new home during the course of the last four months. From the first day of orientation to the last day of final exams, Hong Kong has grown to occupy a large part of my heart and a place I hope to call home again one day.
While I was able to discover Hong Kong through exploring the city outside of the classroom, I was also given the incredible opportunity to immerse myself into the rapidly growing hospitality industry of Hong Kong and its surrounding Asian regions through the opportunities provided exclusively through the Master’s program. With site tours of a large variety of hotels in the city, lectures from hotel leaders from the local Hong Kong and entire Asia Pacific market, who were often alumni of PolyU or EHL, and teachings provided from professors and visiting lecturers at PolyU, we were completely involved with the entire industry of Hong Kong’s hospitality market.
At the Hong Kong PolyU’s School of Hotel and Tourism Management, our classes included – Quality Service Management, Marketing Management, Hospitality Business Strategies, and Revenue Management – in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry, with a focus on Asia. The courses taught us about the industry from hands-on projects and real-life case studies and allowed us to apply our knowledge of the market to our academic work. One project included a revenue management simulation where students were required to act as various managerial positions to improve the current situation of an underperforming hotel using tactics learned from the course, as well as from external market information.
Not only did we learn about Hong Kong’s hospitality environment from our courses, but we were also able to get a glimpse of the hotel industry of mainland China through the Hospitality Business Strategies in Asia: China Hotel and Tourism Business Studies course, which included a Business Field Trip to China’s Beijing and Shanghai.
The Business Field Trip in China was a major highlight of the semester as it exposed us to a great variety of aspects of the hospitality industry of China from both domestic and international players. The six-day trip included many visits to the corporate offices of hotel companies, such as InterContinental Hotel Group, site tours of hotels from the luxury five-star sector, boutique hotels, and the rapidly growing budget hotel sector, like the Ritz-Carlton Pudong, Hotel Indigo on the Bund, the Emperor Beijing Hotel, and Home Inn, respectively, and opportunities to experience the hotels from guests’ perspectives. As students of the industry, we are constantly learning about the business of hotels and their strategies from the perspective of management, owners, and investors, so it was particularly interesting to be able to experience the hotels in China as guests for a change. The guest experience gave us the full experience of the hotels and their unique services and a better understanding of the industry overall.
As I depart Hong Kong to continue on to the next chapter of the Master of Global Hospitality Business journey, I leave a part of myself behind with the city, but also with the new addition of many valuable experiences and lasting memories. With my newly acquired knowledge from the past semester, I am eager to begin my capstone in-residence period, of which I have been preparing for since the first semester of the Master’s program at EHL. For now, I will have to say another bittersweet “See you later” to Hong Kong, as I did with Switzerland a few months before, only to say “Hello” to Hilton Worldwide in McLean, Virginia and the University of Houston’s Conrad N. Hilton College in Houston, Texas, as our exciting 3continents3semester adventure continues.
-Kristina Park
Student, MSc Global Hospitality Business
3continents3semesters 