With the rapid development of the hospitality industry in Asia, especially in Mainland China, sectoral employers are keen to develop talent to keep up with their expansion plans.

On February 2, InterContinental Hotels Group (IHG) announced the signing of the first IHG Academy in Hong Kong, in partnership with Caritas Bianchi College of Careers to offer a two-year higher diploma programme. This will be the 41st IHG Academy in Greater China.

Under IHG’s support, students from Caritas Bianchi College of Careers will have the opportunity to attend lectures by senior IHG executives and experience diverse jobs in IHG hotels through internships.

Koh Ying Ying vice president, hotel operations, HR, Greater China said students will spend two days a week attending lectures in school and two days getting hand-on experience at the hotels.

“We hope they can learn the culture at IHG and get to know that hotels are an exciting industry,” she said.

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Grooming internal talent has proven to be an effective way to boost talent supply for IHG, which first established the IHG Academy in 2006 in Shanghai to address the huge demand for trained talent.

Since then, 40 schools have been set up in more than 20 cities, with the latest one being in Hong Kong.

Overall, IHG employs 65,000 people, working in nearly 250 hotels in Greater China and the group plans to double the number of hotels in the region in the next few years.

“The group is expanding rapidly, providing graduates lots of opportunities to work in different parts of the world,” Koh added.

Brian Liu, area director of human resources, Hong Kong and Macau said graduates can choose to continue studying or start their career.

“Graduates are welcome to apply for jobs with IHG or continue their education while gaining work experience from working part-time with us,” he said.

Students will begin their internships, after the first semester. The first batch of students will start their internships at five IHG properties in Hong Kong, shortly after the Lunar New Year holidays.

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