Last week on campus Les Roches Marbella students organized and participated in the latest edition of their internship exhibition, “Stage Fair”. The exhibition, held at the beginning of each semester, serves as a meeting point for new and old students alike who are selecting hotels to apply to for their future internships as a requisite of the Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA )in Hospitality.
This semester’s exhibition included student groups who worked recently in an impressive 97 luxury hotels around the world belonging to 25 different international hotel groups. Destinations ranged from Tenerife, London, and Dubai to Thailand, China, and Bora Bora.
Students returning from their international internships abroad, exhibited the hotels and destinations where they worked during the previous semester. To help other students narrow down their internship selection process, Stage Fair works as a forum for networking amongst colleagues who share their firsthand experiences and provide important contacts.
Walking around the exhibition, it becomes clear that wherever you go in the world, Les Roches Marbella students and alumni are not far behind.
Two recent testimonials of this realization came from Spanish tennis legend, Manolo Santana, who mentioned during the August induction ceremony of new students, “I travel quite a bit for tennis events and during a recent trip to London, I was delighted to find myself being attended to in my hotel by a former Les Roches Marbella student. Knowing and working with Les Roches Marbella for several years now, it comes as no surprise to me that the school’s students can be found wherever my travels take me.” Another, Alan Diaz, Executive Vice-President of Laureate International Universities, said during last semester’s commencement ceremony, “I travelled to over 28 destinations around the world this past year and there were Les Roches Marbella alumni working in almost half of the hotels where I stayed.”
It is extremely inspiring to see the energy that comes out of Stage fair through the mixture of new students and the others who are now seasoned hospitality professionals. New students, currently embarking on their first hospitality training experience on campus, are just beginning to show signs of confidence in their newly acquired skills. Meanwhile, the students who have been away applying these skills during their internships in hotels around the world, return completely transformed.
It gives us great pride to witness the change in our students from one semester to the next. Indeed, the change is radical as they mature immensely during their semesters abroad. Upon their return to campus, they come to realize that what they have learned in our craft-based learning facilities has prepared them to meet the challenges of the hospitality industry head on. Their newly acquired confidence propels them forward and encourages them to be all they can be in their trajectory as future leaders in the international hospitality industry.
To highlight the Stage Fair Internship Exibition, we have prepared a video featuring interviews with two students who were on internships last semester in the five stars Landmark London Hotel and in Tenerife’s Abama Golf & Spa Resort respectively. Please do take a moment to hear what they have to say about their experience.
