Iconic London hotel the Savoy is to reopen its training academy after a 13-year break, Caterer can reveal.
The hotel, owned by Fairmont Hotels and Resorts and which is undergoing an 18‑month refurbishment costing £100m, has put £500,000 into bringing back its training programme, which closed in 1995.
The academy's curriculum will have three major planks: student orientation, education about the Savoy as an institution, and creating and developing leadership in their management team. It will restart in the runup to the hotel's reopening next year.
Kiaran MacDonald, general manager of the Savoy, said that the relaunch of the training academy was as much about adding to the industry as a whole, as to the hotel itself.
He told Caterer: "The level of time and investment put into our students will relate to hotels around the world and add to the industry. Training needs to start in hotels, and this shows our commitment to effective training."
The hotel has forged links with the University of Surrey and Oxford Brookes University, and has also started discussions with the Ecole Hotelière de Lausanne in Switzerland.
The academy will be used for all new Savoy staff, including former employees who wish to return, and will be used along with a thorough interviewing and selection process, according to Eugenio Pirri, regional director of human resources in Europe for Fairmont.
"We will also increase the number of staff by 200 to cater for the river restaurant and butler service," he said. "The hotel is also putting in a huge investment of £7,000 per person to ensure a certain standard is met."
The group, which has already received 4,000 applications for jobs at the Savoy, has recruited Bernhard Mayer and Vincent McGrath, both formerly of London hotel Four Seasons on Park Lane, to fill the roles of executive chef and director of food and beverages respectively.
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By Gemma Sharkey
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