Ruud Reuland
Director of Lausanne Hotel School, the first hotel school in the world and among the top three establishments providing international hotelier courses.
"This canton has matchless pedagogical capabilities. It truly is a region of education with several schools of international renown."
The international fame of the school that you run has given the canton of Vaud a reputation for excellence in the hotel trade and its education since 1893. Is this still justified today?
Certainly! Switzerland in general, and the canton of Vaud in particular, are the cradle of the modern hotel and catering trades. The number of five-star hotels and quality restaurants that you find in this region today is really impressive. A culture of living and being which is difficult to translate into other cultures is perpetuated here. In my home country, the Netherlands, for instance, I have a lot of trouble explaining the specific features of this culture which makes the hotel trade so excellent, as taught and practised here.
Lausanne Hotel School is one of many internationally renowned schools in the canton of Vaud, along with IMD (management), the EPFL (technology) and the ECAL (applied arts). How do you explain this concentration of educational establishments?
I think that this canton has matchless pedagogical capabilities for international education in addition to specialist skills in the fields taught. It really is a "region of education" that is among the best in the world. In the hotel trade, people don't call our school by its name, they merely say "Lausanne". This shows just how much it is associated with this region.
Who comes to study at Lausanne Hotel School, and what do the students find so special there?
We have 1,600 students from more than 85 different countries. It is one of the three best-known hotel schools in the world, and often placed top of the list. I think that its greatest skill is to combine the art and the science of the hotel trade. The art is the relational side of the trade and the science covers the managerial skills. You need both to create an unforgettable experience. Most of the other schools put the emphasis on one or other of these aspects.
On a personal level, how welcome did you feel when you arrived from the Netherlands?
I felt very welcome and had no problems integrating. Neither have any of the eight other members of the school's board, all of them foreigners. It's a very international region which is used to welcoming people from throughout the world. You often hear people talk about how open and tolerant the Netherlands is, but I find it even more so here! The people here are extremely tolerant and respectful.