Hotel Okura has teamed up with Tokyo Management College (TMC), a practical vocational education institution in Chiba, Japan, to establish a Tourism and Hospitality Course curriculum at the college from April 2021.
Additionally, Hotel Okura is establishing an education and training programme in Japan for its overseas local staff, in cooperation with TMC and Tokyo Masuda Culinary School, a professional chef training institute located in Edogawa-ku, Tokyo.
This programme aims to strengthen and enhance the group’s global human resources and will allow its hotel staff to study under the new Tourism and Hospitality Course curriculum. It will also allow chefs preparing Japanese cuisine at Okura group hotels around the world to take classes at Tokyo Masuda Culinary School.
Hotel Okura plans to invest approximately 200 million yen (US$1.9 million) over the next 10 years in the partnerships with TMC and Tokyo Masuda Culinary School. The resulting study programmes will help to promote cultural exchange between Japan and other countries.
From April 2021, two-year Okura-branded Tourism and Hospitality Course accommodating 40 students will be offered. Hotel Okura will provide course content and instructors, and its group hotels will actively recruit students.
Hotel Okura will cover most of the tuition fees and related expenses of the Hospitality Service Programme for three selected employees of its overseas hotels and future hires every year. As well, the hotel group plans to provide opportunities for students to work at its hotels in Japan, so they can gain more practical knowledge and skills.
Under its partnership with Tokyo Masuda Culinary School, the school will provide cooking tuition in small group classes. Hotel Okura will cover most of the tuition fees and related expenses of the Japanese Cuisine Programme for three to five selected young chefs in its overseas group hotels every year. This programme will prepare them to play a key role supporting Japanese head chefs in Okura Hotels’ Yamazato restaurants as well as in Hotel Nikko’s Benkay restaurants overseas.
