EDITORIAL - ‘Sowing the seeds of Europe…’
There we are. The 19th AEHT Annual Conference which took place in Killarney in the ‘Green Island of Ireland’ is already in the past.
For all the participants, directors, teachers and students alike, this Annual Conference has once again met all expectations: outstandingly good organisation, both of the accommodation and of competitions and the cultural programme. Wholehearted participation by teachers and students (the men and women in green) responsible for the food service. And a friendly and welcoming atmosphere throughout our stay.
Every year the Annual Conferences are similar yet different. Every year the organisers try their very best to enable their guests to make as many discoveries as possible in as short a time as possible.
In this respect the teams from Fįilte Ireland and from the Institutes of Technology spared no effort, and everyone – except the odd inevitable moaners – our stay in Ireland was a total success in every respect.
I have been attending the Annual Conference every year since Zandwoort in the Netherlands in 1997, and I never cease to be amazed: the annual challenge is enthusiastically taken up each year by the organisers who go to great lengths to ensure success.
The AEHT itself is a truly formidable force to reckon with: its 400 members consisting of hotel and tourism schools in 41 different countries are sufficient proof of the dynamism of this highly important sector of the economy. In Ireland as well as in other countries. Officialdom in whatever country would ignore the AEHT at its peril. As would all the other hotel schools which are reluctant to join the Association.
With the unanimous election of Louis Robert, director of the Diekirch hotel school in Luxembourg, to a second mandate as president after a first stint from 2000 to 2003, the AEHT is entering a new phase of its history. Louis Robert, who takes over from Alfonso Benvenuto, intends to fast-track a number of items of business which have been allowed to lie fallow.
Let us thank from the bottom of our hearts the organisers of the 19th Annual Conference in Killarney for all they have done to enable the AEHT delegates to discover all those attractive features of their beautiful country. They will not forget what they have seen; especially not the students whose senses have not yet been blunted by Life. They have been able to experience at first hand the beautiful diversity of this Europe which is still being built. We hope that in their turn they too will become those who sow the seeds of Europe…
We are also certain that the team from Lido di Jesolo in Italy, organisers of the 20th Annual Conference, will pull out all the stops in 2007 to host in style this great entity that is the hotel and tourism schools of Europe.
Jo Laengy
