Forget Basil, it's big business now

Funnily enough, they aren't at all anxious to talk about Basil Fawlty. It's not like that anymore, they say. Long gone are the days when the hotel manager embodied staid respectability, strutting his deep-pile demesne like a besuited demagogue.

Nowadays, hotels are big business, as the most cursory stroll through the crane-peppered streets of our larger cities will attest. Which explains the proliferation of catering and hospitality courses from PLC to degree level in the past 10 years.

Against this backdrop of flux and growth - 47 new hotels opened in Dublin alone last year - the continued prominence of the national diploma in hotel and catering management at Galway/ Mayo IT is noteworthy. Uniquely, this four-year programme is primarily workplace based, patterning itself on a "block release" term model which comprises alternate work/study semesters.

While other catering courses have a heavier academic emphasis, here on-the-job training is of equal import. First-year students are "sponsored" by hoteliers who commit themselves to taking their charges for two extensive periods of in-job training, while third year is devoted entirely to work placement in continental Europe. Book-ending these extended sojourns at the frontline are four study-intensive semesters at college.

The entry process sets the tone for what is to follow. The course is not open to school-leavers - applicants are required to have worked in the industry for at least a year. Even then, only those who convince a board of interviewers that they possess management mettle - that they have gained a meaningful insight into the trade during their 12 months at the coalface - will be considered.

Candidates must have a minimum of five D3 in the Leaving Cert but GMIT is more anxious that students come to the course with a firm grasp of the practicalities of the hotel business rather than with an academic track record.

Core subjects are broadly similar to those offered in any general business programme. Old favourites such as marketing, accountancy and finance dominate. Classes in food and beverage studies and hospitality management add a pinch of specialist flavouring. Students are not expected to emerge from the course as fully fledged hotelier jacks-of-all-trades, but they should have an insight into all facets of the business.

Little wonder, then, that they are rather keen to knock those quaint Fawtly Towers cliches on the head. "Students enter the course with a very clear idea of what they are getting themselves into and a strong idea of what they want to do," says Dennis Murphy, head of G/MIT's school of catering and hotel management. "The fact that they have experienced first-hand the realities of a modern hotel environment gives them that extra edge.

"The class tends to be very vocal. Because they are aware of how things work on the ground, they will readily challenge everything they are told in lectures."

THE programme was established in 1972 under the auspices of CERT, the tourism training agency, to meet a burgeoning demand in the industry for a third-level qualification in catering management. GMIT graduates are today to be found in major chains such as Jurys and the Great Southern hotels, as well as tourism ventures such as the Irish Distillers' heritage centres in Dublin and Midleton, Co Cork.

It remains the sole block-level course in the sector - and the only one which insists that students spend a year at work prior to entry. Murphy admits this has led to a whittling away of applications in the Nineties. Most school-leavers no longer consider entry to the jobs market a viable alternative to further study, he says.

According to Andrew Charles, from Bandon, Co Cork, that first-hand knowledge can make all the difference. It was his experience in a busy hotel kitchen which led him to consider a career in management. A concrete academic grounding is today a prerequisite to advancement in the hotel industry, he says.

A major attraction of the course is its emphasis on foreign travel. There is a well-worn path of graduates from GMIT to destinations in Europe, the United States and Australia. Students say that travel was a major factor in their decision to enroll.

"A qualification in hotel management is something you can take anywhere," says Helen Mannix, from Killarney, Co Kerry. "It's a skill which is in demand all around the world. After all, wherever you find people you will find hotels."