Berggruen Hospitality to set up 50 institutes

NEW DELHI: Berggruen Hospitality, a unit of US investment firm Berggruen Holdings, on Tuesday said it plans to set up 50 vocational education institutes at an initial investment of $10 million in the next three years.

The venture will be branded as United Education Institute (UEI) Global and offer courses in hospitality sector. It plans to add more courses in future, including aviation, retail management and travel and tourism.

"The initial investment for the hospitality initiative over the next three years will be $10 million. More investment will be made to launch programmes in other disciplines such as retail management and aviation," Berggruen Hospitality Managing Director Praveen Roy told reporters here.

He said the first institute of UEI Global will be launched later this month in the national capital.

UEI Global, which will offer both one-year hospitality management programme and short-term vocational courses, plans to open four more academies in Noida, Mumbai, Trivandrum and Pune by September 2007.

The tutorial programmes have been developed under the academic supervision and validated by Netherland-based Hotelschool, one of the top three hospitality management schools in the world, he said.

The fees for the different courses would be in the range of Rs 45,000-75,000, Roy said, adding there would be multiple batches each having a maximum strength of 30.

He said the institute has already tied up with Keys Hotels that plans to open 40 hotels in next five years and was in talks with other hotel operators.