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Hello guys,

Fancy studying hospitality management? You might be interesting in hearing feedback from our first Hospitality field trip in Paris.

Let’s talk about it! Our names are Amandine, Victoire, Charlène and Hubert. We are MSc in International Hospitality Management students and also program ambassadors.

We are lucky to be part of a great program mixing the expertise from 2 famous schools: Institut Paul bocuse for the hospitality side and emlyon business school for the business and entrepreneurship side. As you may recall, our program consists of 3 semesters:  the first two semesters takes place in Lyon,  on both Institut Paul Bocuse and emlyon business school’s  campuses in Ecully and the third one takes place in Shanghai. The training is very diverse in terms of methodology. We have academic classes, online courses, conferences, team projects and even some class field trips.

In addition to visiting the major hotels in Lyon and the Paul Bocuse’s 3-star Michelin restaurant in Lyon, 3 field trips are organized in Paris (November), London (February) and Shanghai (April).

We therefore went to Paris (from November 9th until November 11th) to discover the Parisian hospitality market, analyze the new patterns of our industry and meet key players (Palaces, boutique hotels, gastronomic restaurants, entertainment companies, AccorHotels headquarters, etc.). It has been a great opportunity to meet professionals and to network for our future internships and/or jobs.

The class split into 2 groups. Here is a small overview of what we did during this 3 day-trip:

Paris day 1 : palaces, private clubs, cabarets, gastronomic restaurants

• Saint James Hotel: 5-star hotel and private club with a 1-star Michelin restaurant, part of the Relais & Chateaux collection. We met the Sale Manager who showed us around the different areas of the hotel.
• Moulin Rouge: the Communication Manager told us about the history of Moulin Rouge and its development. We asked several questions related to the cabaret’s strategy. We visited the space where the shows take place every night. We also had the privilege of discovering one part of the backstage area.
• Ritz Paris: we had the chance to step into this leading Palace after its refurbishment. We had the privilege to visit rooms and major suites such as the Coco Chanel suite.
• Le Meurice: we saw three different rooms including the “La Belle Etoile” suite on the rooftop with a 360° view of Paris and walked around in the lobby and conference rooms located on the ground floor. Another part of our group went to Le Plaza Athénée on avenue Montaigne, also a Palace part of The Dorchester Collection.
• Pavillon Ledoyen: visiting the kitchen downstairs was impressive. This 3-star Michelin restaurant is located on the Champs Elysées. The Chef Yannick Alleno came to greet us and took a picture with us.

Paris day 2 : AccorHotel group and Equip’Hotel fair

• AccorHotels headquarters (Tour Sequana): Mr Sven Boinet, number 2 of the group and Amir Nahai, CEO Food and Beverage of the group welcomed us and gave a speech about their vision of our industry and the future perspectives of AccorHotels. Then, we had the great opportunity to visit the showroom dedicated to their brand-new JO & JOE concept, exclusively dedicated to Millennials.
• Equip’Hotel (Porte de Versailles): this trade show highlights all of the most recent innovations in terms of furniture, high tech and sustainability for hotels such as the new generation room for disabled people.
• Night out with all the class at The Ballroom: this cocktail bar was especially privatized for us. In this hidden place (if you don’t know about it, you’ll never find it), we tried personalized tasty cocktails.

Paris day 3 : boutique hotels

• Les Bulles de Paris: a boutique hotel created around the concept of Champagne. We met the owner and founder who gave us an overview of what it really means to open a new independant hotel in Paris and manage it.
• Lunch at Champeaux Ducasse: new brasserie which recently just opened within the new shopping mall “Halles de Paris”.
• La Parizienne, Le Legend and the OFF Paris Seine hotels: those 3 hotels are part of the Elegencia hotel group. OFF hotel is a new hotel based on a barge on the Seine river.

These three days of visits and meetings allowed us to understand what makes hospitality in Paris so special and appealing. We went back to Lyon full of great memories and enthusiasm. We are definitely looking forward to going to London for our next field trip.

For more photos of this event, don't hesitate to have a look at the photo album on the MSc in International Hospitality Management Facebook page. 

See you soon!