The latest Business Master Classes organized by BBLF turned the focus to CSR in Tourism and Hospitality. Classes took place in the week of April 6th to April 10th. As expected the interest in the classes was great and over 120 students who were selected on the basis of their motivation letters participated in the week long lectures in Sofia and Varna led by practitioners in the tourism business.
In Sofia, lectors from the companies Accelerate, Radisson SAS, SMART Travel, Metropolitan Hotel Sofia and the NGO "Initiative for international development" (IFID) shared with students their views and experiences from their work. The topics of the lectures varied and covered different aspects of the tourism and hospitality business such as how to apply for a position in the sector, the current state of CSR in the Bulgarian tourism, the importance of customer satisfaction and methods of keeping the clients loyal and satisfied, the challenges of running a tour operator company in the current market conditions and the necessary skills to run a top level restaurant in a busy hotel.
Concurrently with the class in Sofia, a Business Master Class on the topic of CSR in Tourism and Hospitality also took place in Varna. The companies Renaissance Tours, USIT Colours, AIMS Human Capital, Hotel Lilia and the NGO "Initiative for international development" (IFID) shared with students their experiences in running a tourist agency, their observations on the impact of low cost traveling on the tourism market, outlined the skills necessary for managing a large hotel, gave advices on interviewing for positions in the tourism sector and drew the attention of students to the importance and necessity of implementing CSR practices in their future jobs in the tourism sector.
The next Business Master Class will focus on the topic of Management and will take place in Bourgas from the 21st to the 24th of April.
The Business Master Classes is the largest and longest-running project of the Bulgarian Business Leaders Forum. Each Master Class discusses the most current problems of "real business" and lectors voluntarily provide students with information on the business environment, contemporary local and international tendencies, case-studies from day-to-day business, the most interesting market trends, business overviews and their own personal success stories. The objective is to go into deeper details about each business and thus bridge the gap between students' theoretical background and real business expectations. BBLF's partner in the project is the leading HR Agency AIMS Human Capital.
