格里昂学生在酒店领导者网络会议（HLNC）学生挑战比赛中获胜
格里昂高等教育学院 2014年10月08日
Grisha Davidoff所在团队在酒店领导者网络会议学生挑战中获胜。
酒店领导人网络会议是每年一度的国际会议，这次会议将酒店行业的领导人聚集在一起，提供了创新、教育和人际交往的机会。今年，格里昂高等教育学院收到邀请派学生参加学生挑战比赛，同时参加这场比赛的还有来自其他享有盛誉的大学学生。我们选了三名尖子生代表格里昂参加这次比赛，其中一名学生所在的团队被评委团选中获胜。评委团由大型酒店集团的首席执行官组成，这些大型酒店集团有雅高（Accor）、喜达屋（Starwood）、万豪（Marriott）、Rezidor酒店集团和NH酒店集团等。
采访我们的获胜学生Grisha Davidoff。Grisha Davidoff就读本科学士学位课程金融与房地产方向。在这次采访中，他详细说明了他们团队是如何在今年的学生挑战比赛中获胜的，这次的比赛是一个真实的商业案例学习，参赛者们需要重建阿姆斯特丹（Amsterdam）Palace of Justice，要创建一个富有创新性的建设方案，并且在财务上要具有可实施性，还要在比赛中向投资者展示酒店的理念 — 该房地产项目将于2015年1月动工。
这场会议的程序是怎样的？
本月初，学术活动和会展活动部负责人Jocelyn Schofield夫人选择了我们三名尖子生，通知我们参加活动。那时我们只知道这次的案例学习是由普华永道国际会计事务所（PWC）的咨询顾问们所设计举办的，我们需要对阿姆斯特丹Palace of Justice重建项目做可行性研究，并在顶级酒店集团的首席执行官面前做展示。
我们的一些老师担任我们这个团队的导师，在这些老师的指导下，加上我们在课堂上学到的知识，我们每个人都精心制作了一份详细的市场分析，并开始定义我们的目标市场，挑选有助于项目实施的合适机会。
我们在9月16日晚上抵达阿姆斯特丹（Amsterdam），我们到达那天是周二，周三午饭后，我们和来自其它大学的学生们一起被分成五个独立的团队。晚上的时候，我们第一次参观了Palace of Justice，并开始和我们的团队成员做集体研讨，讨论我们各自的观点，还上了一节可行性研究的课，这节课由真正的房地产咨询顾问们亲自教授。
周四下午，所有的团队都要展示其酒店理念和财务计划，由酒店行业的专家组成的评委团这些团队进行评分，他们会选出三个团队明天继续参加比赛。周五早晨，在首席执行官们面前展示最优秀的三个团队继续参加了这场比赛，现场有非常多的观众，这些团队再一次在150多名总经理面前做了展示。
你们团队的理念是什么？
为我们的理念下定义可能是这次会议中最具挑战性的一部分了，尤其是我们需要在不到两天的时间里做好这个研究报告，要知道，职场专业人士做这件事需要花上几个月的时间。我们只是被告知我们要做一个顶级酒店，我们的方案要富有创新性，并且要从一个投资者的角度来看 — 在财务上还要有可行性。所以在一开始的时候我们先就什么是创新这个问题进行了讨论，然后我们得出结论：创新就是我们的方案要切合实际，不能像很多公司做的那样 — 只是跟风放一些数据和科技或生态理念。
我们决定在我们的目标市场需求的基础上构建我们的理念，并且通过为我们的顾客创造一个独特的体验来彰显我们的与众不同。我们一致认为顾客需要的是有特别意义的时光和独特的体验，他们需要酒店有好的故事可以分享，并且希望他们自己也可以成为这些故事中的一部分。
由于Palace of Justice是一个历史性建筑，这个建筑从审判厅到囚犯室都承载了很多故事。我们决定将审判的概念和更精准的言论自由的含义都整合到我们的理念中。言论自由是阿姆斯特丹这座城市的特色，这座城市在国际上被盛赞为自由之城。于是我们决定在每一间客房都选择一面墙壁完全设计成黑板，这样客人可以在这面墙上画出或写出他们的感受，创造他们自己的故事，并且可以在社交媒体上与整个世界分享这些故事。
相似地，我们决定用同样的概念装点我们别具一格的餐饮部门，我们要有一个“讲话（Speak）”餐厅，一个“审判花园（Garden of Justice）”餐厅 — 在这样的餐厅里我们的客人可以感受到到负罪的愉悦感，最后在楼上设一个罪恶天际线酒吧（Sins Skyline Bar）。我们还决定为客房设计一个与言论自由的概念相一致的迷你酒店图案，于是我们挑选了四个阿姆斯特丹城市中非常与众不同的地方，我们将其作为客房设计的灵感，设计了滑稽的红灯区客房、西区故事客房（典型的荷兰风情）、东方盛宴（移民文化）和南方城市（商业区）。
总而言之，我们想要在酒店中体现出来我们对阿姆斯特丹这座城市的赞美，对荷兰人开放精神的赞美，为我们的顾客提供独特的体验，让他们在这里可以真正体验到这座城市，并且让这座建筑保持其最初的意义。我们决定为我们的酒店起名叫阿姆斯特丹生活（Amsterdam Live），因为这个酒店所有要体现的就是在这座城市生活、感受这座城市并表达你自己在这里居住的感受。
你们是如何完成你们的可行性研究的？
为这个案例做可行性研究也是一项非常有挑战性的任务，因为我们在房地产成本估价方面没有任何可参照的信息。我们不知道我们是购买了建筑和土地还是购买建筑并租赁土地。并且，由于我们是对一栋历史性建筑进行改造，很多方面都需要进行规划，因此在我们对未来的酒店进行规划的时候就有诸多限制：我们只能做出一些假设，并且要做到在短短几分钟的时间内向投资者证明其合理性。
因此，我们需要通过调查这片区域内每平方米土地的价格来估算购买这块土地的成本，根据五星级酒店的市场价值估算建筑成本。随后，我们需要根据行业基准来估算整个重建工程的成本：翻修、非硬性建设方面的提高、家具、固定装置&设备以及运营整个工程所需要的周转资金。我们需要根据这些数据确定一个资金结构来估算我们需要从银行借多少钱以及我们需要筹集多少私人资本。
我们需要建立一个项目工作时间表来安排各项工作：完成创新策划、开始运营、保持运营状况稳定、对酒店进行翻新改造以及最后咨询投资者卖掉这所建筑。我们随后继续对十年内的收入状况做了预测，计算了我们的内部收益率和净现值来证明这是一个很好的投资项目。在酒店品牌选择方面，我们选择了喜达屋奢华酒店精选系列，这是因为我们考虑到该类型酒店地理位置选择灵活，且喜达屋在阿姆斯特丹（Amsterdam）已经开设了一家酒店，这样可以形成规模管理，减少原本高额的花费。没有一个强有力的品牌承载，很难让这些首席执行官们信服你在接下来这些年中能够实现利润的增加。
在这些首席执行官面前做展示感觉怎么样？
我永远也不会忘记周五早晨我在这些首席执行官面前做展示的感受。我们直到凌晨5点半才完成财务计划，7点整的时候我穿戴整齐为我们的展示进行彩排，而我们团队正式的展示时间是8点。
我相信我们的展示做的非常好，因为我们在展示中使用了很多图片，既使得我们很好地传达了我们的理念，又让我们在整个展示过程中与观众保持互动。并且我们在展示过程中还展示了充足的自信，我们直奔我们的财务主题，只展示了我们认为首席执行官们会感兴趣的数据：摊销租金前营业利益（EBITDAR）、股东权益回报率（Return on Equity）、净现值（NPV）和内部收益率（IRR）。在展示过程中的另一个关键时刻是我们回答首席执行官提问的时候，他们问的问题都非常具有挑战性，问到我们是如何得到这些数据的以及我们如何解释这些数据。我必须说我们是通过对自己的自信以及使用自己的直觉通过了这次测试。
总而言之，这是我生命中最具挑战性的时刻之一，也是我生命中经历过的最好的学习体验之一！
你认为格里昂给你的教育对你在这次比赛中获胜有很大帮助吗？
毫无疑问我在格里昂接受的教育是我取得这次胜利的关键因素。根据首席执行官们的说法，他们选择我们的设计方案是因为我们的项目在财政上最具实施的可能性。在这点上我非常幸运 — 我在我的专业课中一直跟随一位非常优秀的老师学习房地产金融课程。在参加这次会议的所有大学中，格里昂是唯一一所为学生们提供房地产估价课程的学校。这毫无疑问使我具备了一个有力的竞争优势。
还有就是我每天都与来自世界各地的学生们一起学习，一起做团队项目，因此对于我来说与具有不同文化和教育背景的人一起在一个团队中工作是一件非常容易的事情。我们团队成员在做这个项目之前从未见过彼此。
这次的学生挑战比赛要求我们快速、高效地做出决定 — 因为我们需要在不到两天的时间内完成整个项目。之前在学校的时候格里昂鼓励我们培养自己的自信，以及我之前在实习期间积累的管理经验都为我这次参加这个活动提供了极大的帮助。最后，我们的软技能和展示技能也是我们赢得这次学生挑战的关键因素。我们连续高强度工作了48个小时，中间没有睡觉，虽然这让我精疲力尽，但我成功地做到了始终保持微笑，在每一位苛刻的观众面前保持具有说服力并花费好几个小时的时间与不同的酒店领导们交流等。
你从这次会议中学到了什么？
能够参加这次会议，我非常自豪，我也非常感谢学校给我这个独特的机会。这次的经历会让我铭记一生，在这短短两天的时间里，我学到的知识量之大超乎我的想象。从个人角度来说，我变得更加自信，也收获了非常多的喜悦，这些收获都是迎接挑战的馈赠。我的梦想是在金融和房地产行业工作过一段时间之后开一家自己的酒店。现在回顾这段经历，我希望这段经历将带领我开启一段激动人心的事业征程。
从学术方面来说，我认识到格里昂的学生们能够在多大程度上学会跳出固有的思维模式来思考问题，我还认识到了格里昂为学生们提供的是非常完整的教育。这些都使得我们能够不断地超越自己，甚至在最具挑战性的环境下也能有超出自己预期的表现。
英国与瑞士格里昂酒店管理高等教育学院 - Glion Institute of Higher Education
中文页面：http://glion.gheac.com/
咨询电话：010-8447 6928
189 0119 3685
在线ＱＱ：800093391
电子邮件：info@gheac.com
办公地址：北京市 东城区 东直门外大街48号 东方银座 C座16E
邮政编码：100027
Glion student wins HLNC Student Challenge
by Glion Institute of Higher Education 8 October 2014
Grisha Davidoff was on the winning team of the Hotel Leaders Network Conference Student Challenge.
The Hotel Leaders Network Conference is an annual international conference that regroups the heads of the hospitality industry for a chance to innovate, educate and network. This year, Glion Institute of Higher Education was invited to send participants for the student challenge along with other prestigious universities. Three of our top-students were chosen to represent Glion and one of them was part of the winning team that was selected by a jury of CEO’s from hotel groups such as Accor, Starwood, Marriott, Rezidor and NH Hotels.
Meet our winning student, Grisha Davidoff, of the Bachelor Degree with Specialization in Finance and Real Estate. In this interview, he explains how his team won this year’s student challenge which was a real-life business case study where participants had to reposition the Amsterdam Palace of Justice by creating an innovative, yet financially feasible, hotel concept that will be presented to investors during a bid for the estate that will take place in January 2015.
What was the program of the conference?
At the beginning of the month, Mrs. Jocelyn Schofield, Head of Academic Activities & Events selected three of our top-students, and briefed us in. All we knew at that time was that the case study was designed by PWC consultants and that we were going to present a feasibility study to reposition the Amsterdam Palace of Justice in front of top-hotel CEO’s.
With the mentorship of some of our teachers and with the knowledge acquired in class, each of us elaborated a detailed market analysis and started defining a target market and identifying opportunities for their project.
We arrived in Amsterdam on Tuesday, September 16th at night and by Wednesday, after lunch, we were all assigned into five separate teams with students from the other universities. In the course of the evening, we visited the Palace of Justice for the first time, had the chance to start brainstorming with our teammates about our ideas, and received a feasibility study class by real estate consultants.
On Thursday afternoon, the teams presented their concept and financial plan in front of a jury of hospitality experts and three of the teams were qualified to continue to the next day.
On Friday morning, the three best teams presented their project in front of the CEO’s and a large audience of spectators and the winning team presented again in front of over 150 General Managers.
What was your concept about?
Defining our concept was probably the most challenging part of this conference, especially because we had to do in less than two days what professionals take several months to do. All that we were told was that we had to be a top-hotel and that we had to be innovative and financially feasible from an investor’s perspective. So we started by debating what innovation means and we came to the conclusion that being innovative was about being authentic and different from the others and not only about reproducing trends such as the digital and technology or ecologic concepts that many companies are already doing.
We decided to start developing our concept based on our target market needs and to differentiate ourselves by creating a unique experience for our guests. We all came to the agreement that guests are looking for meaningful moments and unique experiences, stories to share and become part of them.
As the Palace of Justice is an historical building that carries many stories from its courtrooms and cellblocks, we decided to integrate the notion of justice and more precisely of freedom of speech into our concept, which is characteristic of the city of Amsterdam as it is internationally reputed as the city of freedom. Thus we decided to place an entire Blackboard wall in every room, where the guest could create their own story by drawing or writing their feelings and sharing them with the world on social-media.
Similarly, we decided to brand our different F&B outlets based on the same notion by having the “Speak” restaurant, the “Garden of Justice” restaurant where our guests could enjoy Guilty Pleasures and finally the Sins Skyline Bar at the upper floor. In line with this concept of freedom of speech, we decided to create a mini-hotel design for the rooms, so we identified four very different areas of Amsterdam and we used them as an inspiration for our room design with the burlesque Red Light District Rooms, the West Side Story (Typical Netherlands), the Feast in East (Immigrant Cultures) and finally the South City floor (Business District).
All in all, we wanted to pay tribute to the city of Amsterdam and to the Dutch spirit of openness by giving our guests a unique experience where they could truly experience the city and where the initial meaning of the building remained the same. We decided to call our hotel Amsterdam Live, as it was all about living and feeling the city and expressing yourself live as you would when broadcasting.
How did you do your feasibility study?
Doing the feasibility study for this case was also quite challenging as we had no information about the estimated cost of the property, and we did not know whether we were buying the building and the land or if we were going to buy the building and lease the land. Also, since we were remodeling a historical building, many areas were protected and hence we had many restrictions on how we could imagine a future hotel. Hence we had to work with assumptions and be able to justify these assumptions to the investors in only a couple of minutes.
Therefore, we had to estimate the cost of the land by looking into the price per Meter Square in the area, and the building cost by using Turnkey Costs of 5 star hotel market values. Following that, we had to estimate by using industry benchmarks the total cost of renovations, soft area improvements, furniture, fixtures & equipment, and a working capital to start the business. From these figures we had to determine a Capital Structure to assess how much money we were going to borrow from the bank and how much money we had to raise from private equity.
We had to establish a project timeline to set the dates in which we planned to finish renovations, start operating, stabilizing our operating performance, renovate the hotel and than finally sell the building as we were consulting for investors. We then proceeded to forecast an income statement for a period of ten years to estimate our key performance indicators, prices, revenue and of course profitability. Finally, we had to do a cash flow analysis, and equity reversion to value our property after 10 years and to calculate our internal rate of return and net present value and justify that it was a good investment. We also chose the Starwood Luxury Collection as an operator which we justified due to the compatibility of their positioning and the fact that they already have a property in Amsterdam so we could reduce overhead expenses by having cluster management systems. Without having a strong operator, it is hard to convince CEO’s that you will achieve an increasing profitability in the coming years.
How did it feel to present in front of CEO’s?
I will never forget how I felt Friday morning before presenting in front of the CEO’s. After working until 5h30 in the morning on the financial plan, at 7h00 I was suited up and rehearsing on our presentation with my team to present at 8h00.
I believe that our presentation went very well because we managed to explain our concept very well by using many images in our presentation, and by keeping it interactive. We showed a lot of self-confidence when presenting and we went straight to the point with our financials by displaying only our EBITDAR, Return on Equity, NPV and IRR which are the figures that we assumes the CEO’s would be interested to see. Another key moment in the presentation was when we had to answer questions from the CEO’s, who asked very challenging questions about how we obtained our figures and how we could explain them. I must say that we came through this test by believing in ourselves and using our instincts.
All in all, this was one of the most challenging moments and one of the best learning experiences of my life.
Do you feel that Glion prepared you for this event?
Without a doubt the education that I have received at Glion was key for us to achieve this victory. According to the CEO’s, the reason they chose our proposal was because we were the most financially feasible project. I am very fortunate that I have been following Real Estate Finance classes in my program with a great teacher. From all the universities that participated in the conference, Glion is the only one that offers Real Estate Valuation Classes to the students and this without a doubt gave me a very strong competitive advantage.
Also, as I study day-to-day with students from all over the world and we are always doing group projects, it was very easy for me to work in a team with people from different educations and cultures. Our team had never met before we started the project.
This student challenge required us to make decisions quickly and efficiently as we had less than two days to do the entire project. Studying in a university that encourages you to develop your self-confidence, and the previous management experiences that I acquired during my Glion internships, definitively helped me for this. Finally, our soft-skills and presentation skills were also key to winning this student challenge. Although I was absolutely exhausted after 48 intense hours of work and no sleep, I managed to stay smiling and stay convincing in front of a very demanding audience and to stay for a couple of hours to network with different hotel leaders.
What did you learn from this conference?
I was very proud to participate in this conference, and I am very thankful to the school for giving such a unique opportunity. This was an experience of a lifetime and in only 2 days I learned more than I could have imagined. On a personal level, I have developed more self-confidence and I felt very gratified as hard work always pays. As my dream is to develop my own hotel company after going through the industry of finance and real estate, I look back at this experience as what I hope will be an introduction to an exciting and stimulating career.
On an academic level, I realized to what extent the students in Glion learn to think outside of the box and have a very complete education, that allows us to exceed our expectations even in the most challenging atmospheres.
【原文引自】：http://www.gheac.com/thread-7557-1-1.html
版权与翻译版权所有，转载，复制请注明出自于“GHEAC-环球酒店教育与行业盟”。
没有评论:
发表评论