As a result of the THA study tour of New Zealand undertaken in July by THA’s Steve Old, Greg Astell, Anthony McConnon and Stephen Long, a collaborative relationship was forged between our own Tasmanian Hospitality Association and Hospitality New Zealand. The relationship allowed the THA to send three THA and TasTAFE Awards for Excellence employee category winners to Auckland to attend the 2016 Hospitality New Zealand annual conference. On behalf of the THA, I was requested to accompany Varun Khetarpal from Mures, Lauren Kinne from Glass House and Sam Graudins from Gordon River Cruises to the three day conference held at Auckland’s Sky City. The conference kicked off with Future Leaders Day featuring several inspiring speakers. These individuals spoke about their journeys – a group of three young guys wanting to take their love of beer and home brewing to the next step and turning it into a very successful brewery, a young guy starting out in a kitchen and through perfecting his skills, has been able to travel the world competing with the best and a young apprentice chef, honing her skills, competing at an international level and returning home to open her own restaurant. Each came up against various challenges along the way but hearing about the paths they took to overcome the challenges, made their stories even more interesting. Other sessions made the audience think of things such as future technology, dynamic pricing, job descriptions, the interview process and international tourists. Whilst there were many messages being communicated on this day, two key take outs for myself were – passion and a belief in your abilities can take you far and, never complain about the environment you are in, be the change. ‘Future Megatrends’ – the theme of the conference for the following two days – made the audience consider the future and where hospitality is heading – cloud systems, digital labour, cognitive technologies and the battle for online presence. We were also given an interesting insight into customer habits and behaviours. THA & Hospitality New Zealand working together Leanne Blackwell
“passion and a belief in your abilities can take you far.”
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Hospitality Review
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