PolyU's hotel and tourism school ranks second in the world
Polytechnic University's school of hotel and tourism management now ranks second in the world and its director is confident it is closing in on the top spot.
The latest World Ranking of the Top 100 Hospitality and Tourism Programmes, to be released in the November issue of the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, rank universities based on their research output and scholarship in 11 leading industry journals over a period of 15 years.
PolyU's school ranked fourth in 2005 - the last time the rankings were published - and is now second only to New York's Cornell University.
It is the only Asian school among the top 18 institutions. That list also includes two Australian schools, two from Britain and 13 from the United States.
PolyU's school ranked first in the most recent phase of the study - the five years from 2002 to 2006 - which school director Professor Kaye Chon said showed that it was 'well poised to lead the world's hospitality and tourism education in the years to come'.
'We're moving in the right direction. If we continue to do what we are doing, we'll officially be the best,' he said.
Chon said the school would open a 278-guestroom teaching and research hotel on Science Museum Road, Tsim Sha Tsui, in October next year.
The HK$1.3 billion project will be 29 storeys high. Besides guestrooms, it will also contain staff quarters, lecture rooms, training restaurants and other hotel amenities such as a harbour-view swimming pool and a health club.
The hotel-cum-school will be used to promote teaching and research and offer services to individual travellers. Thirty per cent of its 300 staff members will be students, with the rest recruited from the professional arena.
Chon said the hotel would give students the opportunity to observe and learn the services that sophisticated hotel guests expected, and also be a good place for experiments on how to narrow the chasm between academia and the business world.
