Hospitality House: A new hub for hospitality

Scheduled to launch in the Summer, Hospitality House gives suppliers, employers and training providers a unique opportunity to demonstrate their commitment to advancing and showcasing the professionalism and training within the industry, alongside their determination to address inaccurate perceptions about working in the sectorThe Hospitality Guild was created to address the industry’s overwhelming desire to simplify professional development, help the hospitality sector address its skills gaps, and to train and retain the best staff.The Guild's London headquarters, Hospitality House, will be a focal-point for its activity, providing a hub and training venue for industry with high-tech online facilities able to reach thousands of SMEs and large employers nationally with master classes, events and promotions. It will be a modern, vibrant venue for the Guild’s members and partners to host training courses, specialist career days, management meetings, awards ceremonies, press launches and other events. The venue has been donated rent-free by McDonald's; an incredible gesture of support from one of the country’s largest employers.The concept for Hospitality House began as a hub which represented unity in hospitality and over time this became a £1.4m flagship site with training kitchen, bar, cellar, meeting rooms and state of the art online training and videoing infrastructure. Hospitality House is the physical embodiment of the Hospitality Guild and will therefore unify, represent and showcase all sectors of the hospitality industry. It will be a demonstration, training and meeting hub that is accessible by and beneficial to, all the Guild’s stakeholders.

Aims of Hospitality House

The aims of HH are to:

• Train learners at hospitality house both with on the job training through advanced on site facilities, remotely through hi-tech facilities and in the classroom
• Be accessible so that all sectors and types of business benefit from the facilities Hospitality House offers.
• Showcase all that is good within hospitality by hosting events, master classes and training sessions at Hospitality House
• Synergy with retail - create a regional retail skills shop and benefit from synergies between retail and hospitality

State-of-the-art training facilities

Hospitality House has been designed and is being fitted-out with state of the art equipment and IT infrastructure. This means that individuals, training providers and employers will all benefit from attending or using this fantastic value venue and its facilities and equipment.As well as the on-site training facilities; such as the demo/training kitchen, reception, bar, cellar and café there is an online collaboration platform which allows participants to take part in a virtual video conferencing environment, from anywhere in the country with an internet connection. For example, an employer or training provider could use the system to present a live show to a huge audience and dynamically interact with any viewer in their audience. With one click of the mouse, the ‘host’ could drag a user out of the audience and bring them streaming live into the meeting to collaborate or answer questions, while the remaining audience members are following along in real time. Any viewer can become a participant, and any participant can be switched back to a general viewer.Other platforms allow you to simply broadcast one message or one video to a large audience, but no one else lets the hospitality community interact and collaborate around rich media like this system will. This means that many SME owner operators will be able to access first class training without ever having to take time away from their business. With cameras being positioned throughout Hospitality House the ‘live’ training happening on site to a relatively small group can then be broadcast to a much wider audience. Be this in the kitchen, bar, meeting room or cellar. The opportunities for businesses large and small are huge and for individuals it means they can choose if they wish to access training on-site, at work or at home.For the Guild and its partners it also means that regular communiqués could be broadcast to large groups of their target markets on a myriad of topics. For example the technology could allow Young Hall of Fame champions to reach hundreds of children in several schools at the same time to discuss their careers and the opportunities which are available.

Partner Organisations

The Guild acts as an umbrella organisation, bringing together 20 of the leading hospitality associations and the best and boldest industry employers. Rooted in the tradition of the medieval craft guilds, it is a modern-day guild dedicated to the development of the highest professional standards in hospitality. All Partner Organisations to the Hospitality Guild have been offered use of Hospitality House as a permanent office, a London ‘hot desk’ base or as a venue for training, events and meetings.Partner Organisations of the Hospitality Guild include: Academy of Culinary Arts, Association of Catering Excellence (ACE), Academy of Food and Wine Service, British Institute of Innkeeping, A.I.C.R. UK, Craft Guild of Chefs, Foodservice Consultants Society International (FCSI), HOSPA, Institute of Hospitality, Local Authority Caterers Association (LACA), Master Chefs of Great Britain, People 1st, Professional Association of Catering Education (PACE) Springboard UK, The University Caterers Organisation (TUCO), UK Housekeepers Association, Restaurant Association, the Wine and Spirit Education Trust and the Worshipful Company of Innholders.

Venue for Members

Hospitality House is a centre for hospitality and as such we will be encouraging members to use the venue and facilities as much as possible.

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For more information about Hospitality House please click herefor more information about this communication please contact Heather Gibsonon 020 7534 0392 or heather.gibson@epmagazine.co.uk