Resort & Hotel Management Team Scores Win at Tourism Conference

A team from Selkirk College has again won top spot and $1,000 prize money at the 2009 BC Hospitality Case Study Competition held recently in Vancouver. This is the third straight win for students from Selkirk’s School of Hospitality & Tourism.

The team, one of a dozen from BC’s colleges and universities, competes each year at the BC Tourism Industry Conference sponsored by Tourism BC and coordinated by LinkBC, the tourism & hospitality education network. The case study competition showcases students’ knowledge and skills that can be applied for employers upon graduation.

Teams are judged by panels of industry leaders on the quality and content of presentations probing current issues facing BC’s tourism industry. Selkirk’s team, all students in the two-year Resort and Hotel Management Program, Tenth Street Campus, Nelson, researched how to boost sustainable tourism in BC in conjunction with the 2010 Olympic and Paralympic Games. The competition criteria required the team to identify sustainability strategies for the accommodation and food and beverage sectors to implement prior to 2010, conceive a way to train tourism and hospitality staff in sustainability practices, and create a plan to educate the public, via a news media campaign, about sustainability innovations and advances taking places in BC.

Team members included Hailey Rilkoff, of Nelson, Leanna Leibel, of Oliver, Bobbi Haggard, of Smithers, and Jordan Lapp-Sullivan, of Montreal. The team coach was Steve Bareham, a Business Communication Instructor in the School of Hospitality and Tourism, whose task it was to focus the team’s substantial research and information gathering work and to help them shape it into a dynamic 15-minute presentation using contemporary computer technology and software.

The Selkirk team’s proposals included creation of a unique “four-door award system” spanning the four areas of tourism sustainability: environment, economic, social, and cultural. The four-door system, similar in concept to the world renowned five-star rating, would see hospitality and tourism operators receive color-coded “open door” awards when their properties meet established criteria in each of the four areas. To achieve an education build-out to tourism employees and the general public, the Selkirk team suggested creation of a mandatory online sustainability training program for managers and staff of hospitality and tourism establishments. The third recommendation was for a comprehensive media and public relations program using social networking tools such as Facebook and YouTube, as well as traditional media, to communicate what provincial operators are doing to improve sustainability practices.

As a sign of how leading edge and well received the Selkirk team’s case study content was, they were approached after the competition by Rod Harris, CEO of Tourism BC, who invited them back to Vancouver to deliver the presentation again before that organization’s board of directors in late April.

Bob Falle, Chair of the School of Hospitality and Tourism at Selkirk College, accompanied the team on the trip. He said, "We’re very proud of our students' accomplishments in this competition. Their original ideas and professional delivery of their presentation impressed the judges and all others watching the competition."

Team member Hailey Rilkoff said she gained “a greater understanding and trust about the leaders of our industry; they really do want to make a difference, and they want students to be a part of it. Working on the case study took a lot of time and effort, but it has paid off not just in winning the competition, but also being able to see our ideas carried further and hopefully implemented.”

About 600 delegates attended this year’s conference from accommodation, transportation, resort, attraction, tourism associations, industry suppliers, and education sectors. In 2008, the 18,000 tourism operators in BC generated $10.2 billion in revenues and directly and indirectly employed 266,000 people, making tourism the second largest industry in BC after forestry.

First published on March 06, 2009