Niagara University is designing hospitality training courses for students in Vietnam and other Asian countries.
The university created the project with two partners in Vietnam: Foreign Trade University and Imperial Group, which oversees the five-star Imperial Hotel in Vung Tau.
Deborah Curtis is the director of the Brennan Center and International Relations Office. She said the three organizations are partnering to address the need of improved professionalism in the hospitality industry.
“We’re initially marketing it to Foreign Trade University graduates,” Curtis said. “They have a lot of business students that have decided that perhaps accounting, finance, or some of those fields that they originally had studied weren’t really what they wanted to get in to.”
Students who complete the program will have the option of continuing their studies at N.U. to earn an accredited graduate degree.
“Vietnam is really doing more marketing. The five-star hotels are increasing, so the facilities are growing in Vietnam, so they’re more able to satisfy the international customer. So now they have the facility and they’re just trying to get the quality level of the staff to match the quality level of the facility,” Curtis said.
The nine-month program launches October first.