TABLES TURNED

They could have their pick of the best schools, but more young super achievers from Asia are going to a hotel academy a choice they believe opens up more doors.

- MAVIS TEO

With lawyers for parents, it would seem natural for Christopher Menon, 27, to follow in their footsteps.

Menon, whose father is a well-respected figure in the Singapore legal sector, was thinking of reading law at New York University in the United States when he chose EHL Hospitality Business School (formerly known as Ecole Hôtelière de Lausanne), a Swiss hospitality school. This idea was planted after meeting EHL reps at St Joseph Institute International in Singapore, where he was completing his International Baccalaureate.

Indonesian Gabriella Brookfield, whose father Charles is the founder and chairman of Archipelago International, one of Southeast Asia's largest privately owned hospitality management companies, had her eye on a law degree at King's College London in the United Kingdom when she decided on EHL instead. Brookfield has just completed her second year of undergraduate studies at EHL..

Menon and Brookfield are two of a growing number of Asian students who have chosen to go to EHL in recent years.

Although the school only started to keep official records of the students' nationalities from 2018 (the number has grown by 44 per cent in 2024), the school and EHL Group CEO Markus Venzin confirm that interest and enrolment from Asia have increased steadily even before that.

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"It seems there is a long-held perception among Asian families that studying in a hospitality school prepares one for a frontline job in a hotel or a waitressing career but this is changing," shares Venzin. "More than 50 per cent of our students go on to have successful careers in non-hospitality industries like banking, consulting and luxury brand management," says Venzin, whose team is reaching out to overseas markets apart from traditional ones like France and Switzerland about what a Bachelors of Science in International Hospitality entails.