Nurturing home-grown talent
A young hospitality student from the University of Salford has become the first umi hotels intern to graduate into management through the umi hotels internship program.
Yogesh Mistry is 22 years old and currently completing his degree in hospitality and tourism. Having worked his way up through reception, concierge, conference and events roles at umi hotel London, he is now moving into a senior management position. The new role of Management Trainee involves living on the hotel premises, financial analysis and overseeing the daily running of the 117-room hotel.
Umi hotels Founder, Steve Lowy, has made the effort to work with many academic institutions both in the UK and abroad to help train hospitality students right from the moment he began his business. Ranging from 1 week GCSE work experience to 6 month language and hospitality placements, over fifty students have worked at umi so far, covering more than 15 different nationalities from as close as France and as far as Argentina. Steve also speaks at universities several times a year on topics including hospitality marketing and business management.
Yogesh, known as Yogi, said “My roles at umi have helped me understand how the business world really works, particularly aspects of hotel management and hospitality management. Umi has helped me become a confident communicator, a leader and also provided me with the opportunity to achieve my career ambitions.”
He went on to say “one reason why I want to stay at umi is because of the company’s passion to provide the best service it can to its customers. There are a lot of opportunities and I feel that I can learn and develop myself even further”.
Patrick Trodden, Lecturer at the University of Salford said “I am delighted for Yogi. The focus of programmes at the University of Salford is to combine the academic world with the world of enterprise. I believe that the internship offered by umi hotels reflects this partnership and will continue to allow Yogi the opportunity to consolidate the knowledge he has gained on his degree programme in a vocational setting. This will enable him to develop an effective management style which will be responsive to the needs and pressures of the real world.”
Umi hotels receives around thirty applications for its internship program every year and the success of the program proves that young ambitious people are more than willing to gain the experience they need to achieve great things in a competitive industry.
