Doors swing open at college

The first intake of students at the opening of QRC Tai Tokerau Resort College in Paihia. The students are gearing up for work in the hospitality industry. Photo / John Stone

The QRC Tai Tokerau Resort College is open for business.

The college, which provides hospitality and hotel management training, officially opened last Thursday. Its first intake of 19 students were on site the previous week. The students include 18 Maori, and all but one (a Coromandel student) from Northland.

The college has started with eight staff, including tutors, pastoral care staff and administrators.

Queenstown Resort College chief executive Charlie Phillips said opening the company's second campus is good for the Northland economy. The main campus is in Queenstown.

He said QRC started marketing the Paihia campus in the new year and there have already been 15 applications for the second intake in July. Mr Phillips said he expects the campus to be at capacity within two years, with four intakes of up to 350 students.

QRC will also seek to grow the number of foreign students at the Paihia campus, but Mr Phillips says the emphasis is on domestic students, especially from Northland, and preferably with a high proportion of Maori. He is confident there will be a waiting list of students by 2018.

The 21-month course is based on a Swiss hotel school model. The first six months is spent on operational base knowledge, followed by a 1000-hour (six to nine months) paid internship within the industry before students return to the college to complete their course.

Mr Phillips is confident graduates will be well qualified for working overseas as well as domestically. The residential campus has an operations manager, pastoral support for students and an accommodation manager.

"Our aim at the college is to provide the best outcome for our students possible."

The college will initially run a Diploma in Hospitality Management course with an additional Diploma in Adventure Tourism Management course due to kick off in 2017.