Learning Early

This past spring 13 teams of high school hospitality students competed for a national trophy and thousands of dollars in scholarship money at the seventh annual National Lodging Management Program (LMP) Competition. This year’s students represented schools in Arkansas, Florida, Hawaii, Idaho, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, New Mexico, New York, South Carolina, Wyoming, Washington, D.C, and Guam.They competed in a series of hospitality-focused events judged by veteran hoteliers, educators, and hospitality industry suppliers. 

The LMP competition is sponsored by the American Hotel & Lodging Educational Foundation, Best Western, Marriott, Wyndham Worldwide, and HCareers. The annual event has become popular within the industry and AHLEI President Robert L. Steele III, CHA, says the competition gives young students a chance to better prepare themselves for hospitality careers or collegiate study in the hospitality field. “It provides them with  curriculum with high-level concepts that they need to be successful managers,” he says.
LMP participants are 15- to 18-year-olds who participate in high school career education programs that use the AHLEI’s LMP curriculum. The two-year program, geared to high school juniors and seniors, includes 360 instructional hours covering a broad spectrum of hospitality functional areas. Students who complete both years of the program, plus an additional 160 hours of work experience, can earn the Certified Rooms Division Specialist (CRDS) certification from AHLEI. 

“Having that certification distinguishes them and gives them an edge when they are applying for a job,” Steele says.

LMP has found many industry supporters over its existence. In fact, many of the schools that compete receive support from their partner state associations and from local hotels that provide classroom space and opportunities for internships and hands-on experience rotating through each of the hotel’s departments. However, some LMP classes haven’t been as fortunate, and students in those programs have been unable to get the hands-on experience they need because of a shortage of internships and work opportunities at local hotels.

Advertisement

“Industry people can provide job shadowing, interships, field trips, and scholarships,” Steele says. “Industry can engage these students in many various manners.”
There are two ways the students in the programs can make their way to Orlando. Some teams win state-level competitions and earn the right to compete nationally; others make the trip on their own, to test their mettle on a national scale.  

During the national competition, the teams are judged in three events: Hotel Operations, The Hospitality Project, and The Knowledge Bowl.
In Hotel Operations, students apply their knowledge in a three-part challenge. First, they compete in room inspections, in which they have 10 minutes to find 10 housekeeping cleaning errors in a typical guestroom using an executive housekeeping checklist. Next, they perform a night audit, in which teams perform financial calculations and manually post front desk accounting information. Finally, students have 15 minutes to prepare and present solutions to case study scenarios in food and beverage and sales and marketing. 

In The Hospitality Project, teams demonstrate their knowledge, skills, and abilities in event planning. They are given a scenario that includes budget parameters, invitation design, banquet event order, menu, and floor plan. 

In the Knowledge Bowl, teams demonstrate their knowledge through a multi-round, question-and-answer Jeopardy-style quiz. 

Throughout the competition, the student teams have the opportunity to interact with the judges, who have included people like AH&LA President and CEO Joe McInerney, Steele, and Emily Ellis, vice president of culture and brand training at Gaylord Entertainment. 

And the students have proved impressive to the people they’ve met. “From the moment the students got here, I could see their passion and enthusiasm for their study, for their career path,” Roy Nassau, general manager of the Orlando Airport Marriott, which hosted the event in 2009 and 2010, says. “I was impressed and gratified that they want to be part of our profession.”

“Because tourism and hospitality has become a much more integral part of two-year and four-year colleges, hospitality is becoming more of a sought- after career than it was in the past,” Steele says. “Programs like LMP give these students an opportunity to start thinking more about hospitality and gives them the opportunity to seek out and learn more about what’s going on in our industry. That’s made students more prepared and knowledgeable  than in the past.”

To learn more about how your property or association can support Lodging Management Program students, or to learn more about bringing the LMP curriculum to high schools in your area, please contact Lee Ann Lonsdale at 407-999-8115 or llonsdale@ahla.com

Previous articleReflections on Reality
Next articleMaking the Most of It