Hospitality House will be a central facility for the service industry that will drive customer service and skills training across the hospitality and retail sectors.
Simon Vincent, president EMEA Hilton Worldwide and chairman of the Hospitality Guild commented; “This is a massive boost for the sector. Kindly donated rent-free by McDonald’s, Hospitality House will become a state of the art training and meeting hub, acting as an iconic symbol of the industry’s belief and support of its people.”
Suzy Jackson, executive director of the Hospitality Guild, said that the funds from the SFA provide a fantastic start in the development of Hospitality House, and that she was now working with industry to generate the additional investment needed through match funding.
“With the SFA funding and a further £250,000 already committed from leading industry employers and suppliers including Hilton, Compass Group UK & Ireland, Electrolux, Conti and Heineken, we have secured 75% of the funds needed to develop Hospitality House, but we now need to focus on securing the remainder of the funding to bring this fantastic opportunity to fruition.
“In only its first year, the Hospitality Guild is already making significant progress. The call from industry for ‘one voice for professional development’ has been overwhelming and an agenda which 23 professional bodies have aligned with. We can deliver better trained and qualified people and improve the image of hospitality by working together. What Hospitality House does is allow us to bring all of this ambition under one roof and support that across the service sector.
“The combination of seminar, meeting rooms and office spaces, a retail skills shop, and a training and demonstration kitchen, bar and reception area, provides a great training venue with the real advantage of the technology that allows us to reach businesses across the country.”
Hospitality House will incorporate ground-breaking IT and audio-visual technology and will be able to not only host a range of training events, but also to deliver training remotely to people throughout the sectors; the end-user will only need access to a computer with a standard internet connection to take advantage of these facilities.
The hospitality and retail industries play a major role in the UK economy, employing more than 15% of the UK’s total workforce. Key to the ongoing success of these sectors will be the ability to ensure they have staff with the skills employers need to develop and grow their business.
Jane Rexworthy, director of skills solutions and head of NSA for Retail, said that by working together to create the centre of excellence the hospitality and retail industries would gain significant benefits and ensure that programmes implemented had a greater impact – points that were key to the success of the funding bid.
“There are a lot of similarities between hospitality and retail, and we face similar challenges when it comes to recruiting, training and retaining our staff.
“If we don’t do something to address our recruitment and training needs, our long-term security could be threatened. That is why we are working together – we know that we can combat these issues and, using the new facilities that Hospitality House will provide, we can help drive forward training and development to make our industries stronger.”
The refurbishment of Hospitality House is due to take place in the forthcoming months and the new venue will open to employers for use by summer 2013.