Joining the Hospitality Excellence Programme part 1

Two students of Stenden University Bali were selected as representatives of Stenden at the Hospitality Excellence Programme 2015. The proud students, Joshua and Gaby  are working together with other students from 4 reputable hotel schools to create a research paper in hospitality. Here is just the first article about their contribution to the programme. Check it out! 

It’s HEPpy Time!

Feel honoured to join the HEP

As quoted by a famous American football player/coach, Vince Lombardi (n.d.), “Perfection is not attainable, but if we chase perfection we can catch excellence.” This quote has inspired me to apply for Hospitality Excellence Programme 2015, or HEP in short. Initially commenced in 2013, HEP is a co-creation between the Association of Dutch Hotel Management Schools with Koninklijke Horeca Nederland (KHN) or Dutch Association for Hospitality Entrepreneurs. 

Fellow HEP representative students 

In other words, this is also a collaborative networking programme where 5 ambitious students from 5 different, reputable Dutch hotel schools work in teams, dealing with a real-life, wicked problems within the hospitality industry.

It is of my great honour and enthusiasm that I was selected as one of the 5 students who represent Stenden University along with another Stenden University Bali (SUB) student, Gaby. The selection process involved the screening of CV and motivation letter as well as an interview with two Stenden’s best professors, Mrs. Elena Cavagnaro and Mr. Sjoerd Gehrels. 

We are so proud not only because we were chosen for this prestigious programme, but also because we are capable of representing SUB as well. This means that SUB has high academic standards that give us added value compared with the regular students in Leeuwarden.  #BeProud

New knowledge gained, new friends made!

Continuing Stenden’s legacy from past experiences, Stenden is, again, the only university represented by international students, while the other hotel schools are mostly Dutch. This year, Stenden send 2 Germans – whom one of them recently won the European Mise en Place Cup 2015 (http://emcup.eu/), 1 Honduran/Swedish and not to forget Gaby and I from Indonesia. Interestingly, this has always been Stenden’s value where all international students get equal opportunity to attend various events and programmes offered. It is, in fact, unity in diversity!

Networking lunch

So far, I have attended the first introductory session hosted by Saxion University in Apeldoorn on Friday, 13 February. 2 hours away by car from Leeuwarden, the journey was truly worthy as I have learnt a lot of new, interesting things such as the design thinking method. Besides, I have also met my fellow (future) young hoteliers and professors from the different schools in which we share about how the education differs amongst the schools. As the only guy in the team, I feel so privileged working with friendly and intelligent ladies from Hotelschool The Hague, Saxion University, NHTV Breda and Hotelschool Maastricht respectively. 

In the next four monthly sessions, my team will mostly research on the future of hospitality industry in cities under the supervision of Dr Karoline Wiegerink from Hotelschool The Hague and Dr Albert Postma from Stenden University. At the end of the day, the final product of this programme will be a research paper as well as a presentation, which adds value to the hospitality industry. Overall, new knowledge gained, new friends made!

Student giving presentation at HEP

At last but surely not least, we as Stenden representatives are looking forward for the upcoming session on Thursday, 12 March and Friday, 13 March, which we will host it this time! With an overnight stay in our beloved Stenden Hotel, I am so excited to welcome these people and show the arts of hospitality in Leeuwarden, which might include party as well J. All in all, it was, is and going to be a HEPpy time!

For further information:

KHN Official Website: http://www.khn.nl/home

Association of Dutch Hotel Management School Official Website: http://www.dutchhotelmanagementschools.nl/home

My Stenden Journey of a Thousand Miles - by Wadzanayi Chitambo (part 5)

 

This time Wadzi tells us about her first ever 'White Christmas', exploring Eastern Europe and having her first snow experience!

At last the long awaited white Christmas...

All my life I dreamt of a white Christmas just like any other kid out there would, and finally now that I was in Europe for the festive holidays I had the chance to experience it. There really is a distinct difference of one’s Christmas spirit when living in warm climatic conditions in December when compared to those in cold climatic conditions. I suppose a white Christmas is just a norm which has been imbedded into our heads by the society and other influential things such as television. Without further ado, I will let you walk down memory lane with my to Christmas holiday of 2014.

Traditional European advent's drink

It was all well planned by my dear friend András from the time we were still in Bali, we spoke about spending Christmas in Szombathely, Hungary with his folks. This has to have been the best excursions of my life, with my feet touching the ground in 6 European countries in a space of 2 weeks. During the course of the trip we drove through Germany, Hungary, Austria, Slovakia, Czech Republic and lastly Poland being the final stop whereby we would commence the New Year.

On the first night of our journey we stopped over in a small town in Germany for the night and to get into the Christmas mood, we went to the Christmas market in the village. This was something I had not experienced before, families wondering around outdoors having a jolly good time, with a live orchestra staged to sing Christmas carols and anyone was welcome to join in the carolling. 

Christmas lights at the German market

There were stalls selling all kinds of antiques, decorations, and most importantly foodJ. From the famous German currywurst, to Finnish cuisine to even Chinese noodles. Hot beverages were also on sale to keep everyone warm as it was still a cold winter night, with the likes of hot chocolate, tea, coffee, mulled wine and hot beer, yes! HOT BEER! That also took me by surprise, never had I thought such a thing existed. The ambiance in this place was astounding, from the sound of the violins and trumpets, the Christmas lights and decorations on the olden day German architecture, the smell of all the delicious food, children running around and the sound of families coming together and having a splendid time.

Thereafter we headed back to the hotel to rest and were off early in the morning as we still had a long journey ahead of us. After a couple hours of driving we finally reached Hungary and were in András’ hometown. It truly is a nice feeling to see where your friend grew up. After long awaited rest and seeing as Szombathely is located alongside the Austrian/Hungarian border, we drove to Vienna the next day for some final gift shopping.

Ready to explore Vienna's Christmas market

Sunset in Vienna

Vienna is a beautiful and very clean city, the architecture again was beautiful and the shopping street with all the crème de la crème brands you can think of. There was of course a Christmas market in Vienna as well, and this was much fancier than the previous with very extravagant decorations and lights. It was great to try the famous Wiener schnitzel in one of Vienna’s fine dining restaurants as well as some Vienna sausage. It really is mind-blowing how you can grow up eating something then finally get the chance to eat an original version of it from the place it originates from. With that being said I was then on a quest to try or the famous traditional meals in the places we visited, meals such as the famous Hungarian Goulash, Polish dumplings and the likes.

After all the Christmas shopping was done, then came Christmas itself. Nothing more heart-warming than being surrounded by loved ones on such a special day, although I was not with my family, it really did feel like family regardless of the DNA, A home away from home I would like to call it. A big feast was made with wrapped Christmas presents around the tree. Almost started to believe in Santa again. Being surrounded by people from all different nations, Indonesia, Zimbabwe, Hungary, and Poland, this way getting to know how one holiday can be celebrated differently in other parts of the world. It truly was a moving experience.

Merry Christmas everyone!

Gifts galore

It didn’t snow on the 25^th, so I was feeling sad that I wouldn’t get to experience snow. However on the 26^th the tables turned and it began to snow. It was a dream come true, it felt like a Christmas miracle. When we noticed it had begun to snow I quickly ran outside with so much excitement. And all I found myself saying was WOW, WOW, and WOW! It was absolutely sublime, I had the biggest grin on my face as it was my very first time seeing snow. To my surprise I found myself crying tears of joy, most definitely the best and most cherishable moment. As the other people I was with had experienced snow before they were amused by my reaction. We then began to play in the snow, throwing snowballs at each other, I really felt like a kid again. This is an experience I will treasure for the rest of my life. 

Enjoying Christmas

My first snow!!

Snowballing at night

The Danube river

The best of Hungarian spa

In the following days we did some sight-seeing in Budapest, walking through the royal palace, fisherman’s bastille, crossing the Danube. We found that in Hungary most of the towns have hot thermal water, and this is a big trend in Hungary after having 150 years of Turkish occupation to take advantage of these thermal baths for body treatment purposes. With that being said we visited the Szechenyi spa one of the most famous spa’s for body treatment purposes.

                                                                  

After Christmas was over we continued the journey to Poland and visited a town called Wroclaw – the city of a hundred bridges which is a town with a lot of German influence in terms of German architecture. Thereafter we moved on to Warsaw the capital whereby we spent our New Years. It was of opinion that a very small portion of the old town city survived, and the remaining being metropolitan. This making it one of most modern European city with an enormous amount of skyscrapers. It’s been really interesting to see that part of Europe and being able to distinguish differences between the several European countries. This has just been an insight of the many opportunities I have been granted by going to Stenden. The ability to have a multicultural lifestyle, study as well as see the world. So go ahead, embark on this journey and also begin walking through your Stenden journey of a thousand miles.

Budapest by night

Photo credit to Andras Szemes, follow him on Instagram (@szemesa) for more beautiful pictures of our journey.

Downtown Warsaw

A charming Polish café

The mandatory road trip selfie