First year food and beverage operations students from Plymouth University headed north to Glasgow for an ambitious three-day orientation to some of Glasgow's leading hospitality operations. The trip, led by Professor John Lennon, Chair of the Moffat Centre for Travel and Tourism Business Development was an opportunity for students to understand the management challenges of a range of quality urban based food and beverage operations.

The students experienced presentations and Q+A sessions at the West Brewery, The Willow Tea Rooms, Café Gandolfi, the five-star Blythswood Square hotel and Monachyle Mhor - one of Scotland’s quirkiest hotels settled in the hills to the north of Stirling. In addition, the students stayed in two hotels (Premier Inn and Citizen M) in order to contrast approaches to food and beverage management in each.

As well as learning from seasoned professionals, students were treated to some quality Scottish food including Arbroath Smokies and peat smoked salmon. The trip is seen as a seminal development within the food and beverage modules which are increasingly based on partnerships with industry at a local and national level. Learning from best practice in this way is increasingly seen as a means of adding value to the learning experiences of not just aspiring students, but industry professionals as well.

Plymouth student, Daniel Lee Lewis, commented “Thank you for a fantastic experience in Glasgow. It was a truly an eye opening experience and it has gave me a lot to think about for my assessment. It was extremely well planned and the team behind the project should be very pleased with the end result. I never got to say Thank you to Professor John Lennon for kindly allowing us to be his guests whilst in Glasgow but a fantastic host he was and I've already been in discussion with a few friends to travel back to Glasgow to see more.”

Professor Lennon has undertaken over 500 tourism and hospitality projects in over 35 nations and has led major projects on behalf of private sector and public sector clients in Norway, Denmark, Malawi, Singapore, Canada, Lithuania, the Caribbean, South Africa, the South Pacific. He is uniquely positioned to deliver an engaging learning journey of this kind, given his strong links to a network of Glasgow’s leading restaurateurs and hoteliers, many of whom have received business development advice from Professor Lennon in areas such as F&B management and marketing.