Maria Abellanet: “The internationalization of our student profiles is one of CETT's main goals.”

Maria Abellanet is currently general manager and CEO of the CETT Group and a patron and treasurer of the Gaspar Espuña-CETT Foundation, and has over twenty years of experience in company management within the CETT Group. She is also an associate lecturer at the University School of Hotel Management and Tourism CETT-UB and a consultant in the tourism sector.

CETT Barcelona is an international centre affiliated to the University of Barcelona that provides higher education and knowledge transfer in tourism management. The centre caters for students seeking undergraduate and postgraduate training and also offers lifelong learning opportunities for those in full-time employment, as well as a specific course that forms part of the national vocational training structure. The CETT Group comprises the University School of Hotel Management and Tourism CETT-UB, CETT Consultors, the Hotel Alimara, Viatges Century, the Àgora BCN International University Residence, and Barcelona Academic Services (BAS), which offers a comprehensive range of tailored services covering accommodation, training and other academic activities for international students.

CETT provides an innovative range of official undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. At undergraduate level, last year we completed the process of adapting our diploma courses to the new EHEA structure, and the 2009-10 graduating class of the University School of Hotel Management and Tourism CETT-UB was the first in Spain to hold the EHEA bachelorʼs degree in tourism. The bachelorʼs degree focuses on the key aspects of hotel management and tourism - customers, service and management itself - and has a strong international profile that we are working to develop further through a range of initiatives including overseas work placements, international projects and inter-university final degree projects.

The long-standing ties between CETT and the professional sector ensure that our students graduate both with expert knowledge and with practical experience acquired through work experience with companies in the sector. We are privileged to have at our disposal the hotel management and tourism innovation campus, an extensive area of facilities that helps us to develop our training model. In addition to the technologically advanced learning spaces and extensive resources of the training centre, the campus also has its own hotel - the Hotel Alimara, a student residence affiliated to the UB, a travel agency and a tourism consultancy firm. These additional facilities allow us to maintain a real presence in the tourism sector, enabling us to complement theoretical education with training aimed at developing our studentsʼ personal and professional competences in real professional contexts.

 

In my view, first and foremost CETT is a private education institution that has over 40 yearsʼ experience of providing training in tourism and hotel management and works with a series of distinguished partners. The first is the Gaspar Espuña-CETT Foundation, set up by our founder Gaspar Espuña i Berga, which is the source of the philosophy that guides our educational strategy, encompassing and encompasses the values, attitudes and competences that we aim to inculcate in our students.

The University of Barcelona is also an important partner. Our affiliation to the UB is a key strength, as it underpins our undergraduate and postgraduate course offerings, which include official masterʼs degrees in tourism and hotel management. In addition, the tourism and hotel management innovation campus provides unique access to resources for theoretical and applied training, enabling our students to acquire first-hand experience that contributes to their later career development. The links we have maintained with the professional sector since the CETT was founded provide students with a direct route into the job market.

 

CETT Barcelona places particular importance on employment success and career development, as our graduates are the best endorsement of the training we provide. We have a range of career-oriented services and a specialist team - the E3 Student-Business Space is staffed by five dedicated professionals who provide students with careers advice throughout their time with us and after they graduate. We also have a job bank and provide listings of available work experience placements and international exchange opportunities.

We also have a Virtual Campus, which facilitates communication between the centre and our students; a resource centre where students can consolidate and broaden their training; and CETT Alumni, the association of former CETT students, which strengthens relations between members and creates a network of professionals linked by their training at CETT.

  

The internationalization of our student profiles is one of CETTʼs main goals. We already offer a large number of courses in English, and the centre attaches particular importance to offering its students the chance to take part in international exchange programmes, which we consider a unique experience that will give them a considerable competitive advantage when it comes to seeking employment. We have Erasmus mobility agreements with a number of European universities and partnerships with universities across the world, including the University of Quebec in Montreal and the University of Anahuac (Mexico).

We also take part in international cooperation initiatives, including a very interesting project with the University of Namibia, through the Olof Palme International Foundation, through which five Namibian students and eight lecturers will spend exchange periods at CETT over the next three years.

The E3 negotiates placements in international companies, and we currently have agreements with major hotels and chains such as Real Hotels & Resorts, Hilton, the Chancellor Hotel in San Francisco and the Roger Smith Hotel in New York, through which our students are offered management internships at hotels around the world. In the last academic year, twenty students were given the chance to take up one of these placements.

 

At the moment we have around 200 students from 33 countries enrolled on a range of courses. This is very important in expanding the centreʼs international dimension and for the education of our own students in terms of the skills and competences stimulated by contact with people from other cultures and with other interests.

 

CETT organizes and takes part in different activities aimed at consolidating links with the professional sector and disseminating the expert knowledge generated at the UB. The annual Student + University + Business Meeting, which attracts the participation of over 40 companies, is a window on the current state of the tourism sector and is designed to facilitate the transition from academic study to professional life. During the same week, CETT also organizes the “Mou-te” exchange initiative, comprising a series of sessions at which companies and institutions present international projects designed to promote the academic and professional mobility of students.

CETT holds week-long gastronomy seminars to which we invite suppliers, renowned chefs and high-level professionals and former students now working in the sector. Each year, we also organize three “master events”, which are academic sessions on sector-specific issues of interest to all our masterʼs students, as well as smaller sessions on specific topics throughout the year.

Finally, we invite professionals and politicians to our “CETT Breakfasts”, which are often used to present the work of the CETT Observatory, focusing on a range of contemporary issues and discussing our institutional stance.

 

I would highlight three main goals for the medium and long term: to create, manage and transfer expert knowledge for the tourism sector; to give additional stimulus to the internationalization of the centre; and to instil a concern for corporate social responsibility across all companies in the CETT Group.

For the generation of expert knowledge, we have created specific knowledge areas that form part of our strategic vision and will form the basis of our ongoing work in this area: Tourism, Culture and Territory; Hotel Business; and F&B. The knowledge areas are linked to specific educational programmes, research, conference participation, and projects carried out with companies in the sector, international networks and academic partners, covering every aspect of our academic work as an official university school.

Our commitment to internationalization focuses particularly on student mobility. We are developing new services for an international market, and thanks to the strong reputation the CETT-UB has built for itself we are able to offer a range of academic opportunities such as our “semester programmes” - recognized by partner universities - a summer school and flexible, tailored courses for students from around the world. This work greatly increases our value as an international institution.

Finally, corporate social responsibility forms part of the philosophy upon which CETT was founded some 40 years ago and is being written into our strategic plan. In 2010 we published our first CSR report and I am very pleased with this area of our work - we have a team of volunteers that head the CSR project and ensure that students and staff are aware of what goes into it.

 

I am satisfied with the progress we have made so far, although with the caveat that these are medium- and long-term goals that require a firm commitment to securing the necessary funding and a great deal of perseverance. We are, though, making strides in both knowledge creation and research. We have a lot of projects underway: for example, our Expert Knowledge Area in Tourism, Culture and Territory oversees projects on cinema-driven tourism, school tourism and intermediate cities, and the Expert Knowledge Area in F&B and Gastronomy is involved in a range of interdisciplinary training programmes. The Centre also takes part in international projects with other universities, including the University of Diemen (The Netherlands). So there are infinite possibilities for further progress.

One of reasons for my satisfaction is the change in corporate culture, which is helping us focus clearly on our objectives and pervades the daily work of everyone involved in the organization and teaching of our courses. I should also mention the extraordinary commitment shown by our team of professionals across all of the centres where our work is carried out, which makes our institutional project a unique one and gives us the confidence to think that our goals can be achieved in a short space of time.

 

I would encourage any young person interested in studying tourism or hotel management to enrol at CETT. It is an open institution where customer-oriented skills and attitudes are considered fundamental for subsequent work in a sector founded on a concern for customer service. I would also draw their attention to the high level of specialization on offer and the quality of our training, thanks to which CETT graduates are highly valued in the sector and stand a better chance of developing a successful professional career.