A new brand of entrepreneurs and managers

Enderun College Inc. will open its doors in June this year to train the would-be entrepreneurs and professional managers for the local and international hospitality industry.

While there are a number of learning institutions in the country that offer advanced courses in hotel and restaurant administration and culinary arts –none has come up with the objective of Enderun in pooling all disciplines in one course and adding entrepreneurship to that degree.

Enderun’s founder/chairman Jack A. Tuason–himself a professional hotel and restaurant manager for Discovery Suites in Manila, Tagaytay and Boracay, among others– intended the college to produce not just well respected chefs or chambermaids but professional managers for international hotel and restaurant chains or be entrepreneurs in the hospitality field.

"After all, few industries are as exciting and fast paced as the global hospitality industry– an amalgam of hotel, restaurant, airline and cruise industries and now even classy hospitals veering towards high-end hotel operations and few are growing as rapidly," said Regina Lomarda, Enderun manager who worked eight years with the Asian Institute of Management (AIM) designing the business management curriculum.

The World Trade and Tourism Council estimated that in 2005, travel and tourism generated $1.7 trillion in gross domestic product (GDP) worldwide and directly employed 74 million people. It also projects the hospitality industry growing with 85 million jobs over the next 10 years and contributing $2.6 trillion to global GDP.

"It is at the crest of this high growth, high demand in the hospitality market that Enderun wishes to capitalize on by training not just ordinary workers for hotels and restaurants but producing a pool of dependable, articulate professional managers and even entrepreneurs for the industry," Lomarda said.

Currently located at the second and half of the 19th floors of Wynsum Towers in Ortigas Center– Enderun offers a full range of bacherlor’s degree and non degree courses in hotel and restaurant management and culinary arts and prepares the students for leadership position by providing them professional and management training and grounding them in humanities, social sciences, arts and practical physical sciences, said Chique Torres-Tan, marketing manager of Enderun.

At $5,000 a year tuition fee, an education at Enderun is still cheap compared to formal training in Swiss premier hotels Les Roches and Lausanne, Lomarda said.

Chef See Chong Yan, a culinary head himself and an experienced and well-respected chef in many global hotels and restaurants, promises to give his students tedious training devoid of the glamorous exposure of Lifestyle chefs– to ensure that they imbibe their roles in the real hotel and restaurant scenarios.

"I will make them work on holidays, Sundays and special seasons because in the real world, these are the days when work reaches its peak," See said. He studied hotel and management at Les Roches in Switzerland aside from his certificate in business administration conducted by the Washington State University sponsored by Shangri-La International (which he finished with honors).

He was team leader of Chefs on Parade in 1990, 1993, 1994 and 1995 and winner of the 1991 AMCC Inter-Hotel Culinary Competition and represented the Philippines for the grand finals in Singapore.

Chef See’s advise to his future students: "Do not be mesmerized by the Lifestyle channel. It takes a lot of guts, hardwork passion and patience to get there."

Lomarda is the newest entrant to the Enderun family (of 24 fulltime staff) having joined it only last May 2005. But already she has designed the course curriculum, crafted the Human Resource program, policies and administration of the college and has been screening applicants for the first batch of students of Enderun.

She was also responsible for having the school accredited by the Commission on Higher Education (CHED) which required general education curriculum for first two years and specialization in international hospitality management designed for tourism and cruises. All told, a student has to finish 168 (down from the original course offering of 183 units) units to graduate in BS Hospitality Management either in Culinary Arts or Hotel Restaurant Administration.

Our students will have their 18 units of internship and assured industry placements in: Discovery Suites; Pan Pacific; Intercontinental; Holiday Inn; Hyatt; the Peninsula Manila; Crowne Plaza (Galleria Manila); Philippine Plaza; Le Soleil in Boracay; Holiday Inn (hotels and resorts, including Clark); Mandarin Oriental; Diamond Hotel; Fuego Hotels; the Scarlet (a boutique hotel); Meritus Mandarin (Singapore); Sorell Hotels Switzerland and Zenit Hotels.

The first batch of 150 students had to undergo a very thorough and extremely selective process based not on exams but series of interviews to gauge their passion and determination to succeed in the hospitality business, Lomarda said.

"Enderun’s career-oriented approach–combining Swiss service, US theoretical methods and modern Filipino flair and innate hospitality "will produce the best of the breed and prepare our graduates for top creative and management positions in restaurants, hotels and resorts worldwide," Tuason said.

Aside from Tuason, the advisory board of Enderun is composed of top executives of the world’s largest hotel chains namely: Chuck Floyd, EVP of Hyatt Hotel Corp; Michael Beckley, VP of Marriott International; Mark Keith, managing director of HVS Executive Search in Asia; and Gerhard Kropp, GM of Meritus Mandarin Singapore.

As Lomarda said: "At Enderun we will only produce the best professionals in the hospitality industry and we will be supporting our students every step of the way."

In fact, Enderun also has a scholarship program for poor but truly deserving students who share the passion and dedication to grow in the hospitality industry. "I have already finalized three students as partial scholar (up to 75 percent of tuition), " Lomarda said.

For school year 2007-2008, Enderun will have a new home in Fort Bonifacio at a 1.7-hectare campus of Old World European style buildings set around a courtyard anchored by a sleek, modern culinary center. All told, the campus will comprise of 15,000 sq.m. of space of fully wired lecture halls and auditoriums, state-of-the-art science and kitchen laboratories and other student facilities.

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Enderun College Inc.
2/F Wynsum Corporate Plaza, Ortigas Center
Phone : 6385555/6361613