September 2022 once again found Piers Schmidt at EHL where he spent two rewarding days teaching 20 senior professionals and entrepreneurs from the global hospitality industry during the on-site week at the school’s Lausanne campus.

As with previous cohorts, Piers kicked off the students residential ‘Meeting the Experts’ week with a lecture on ‘Driving Hotel Performance’ demonstrating a brand concept development framework with a detailed case study. This presentation was followed by two sessions of supervised and unsupervised teamwork before the four competing groups presented their overnight work to Piers and Demian Hodari, Associate Professor of Strategic Management, who directs the popular course.

Brands represented among the students in this cohort included the Department of Culture and Tourism (Abu Dhabi), Princess Cruise Lines, Kempinski, Amadeus Labs, InterContinental, LVMH – Moët Hennessy, Regent, Waldorf Astoria, One&Only, The Ritz-Carlton, and Rosewood.

During his visit, Piers was also invited to give his fourth lecture in the business school’s Distinguished Speaker Series. Attended by more than 100 MBA, Masters and Bachelors students, Piers delivered an illustrated talk titled ‘Are You Being Served?’, which examined the level and nature of care delivered by hospitality organisations compared with hospitals and other healthcare setting. His talk was followed by a lively question and answer session.