Boost receives investment from Ecole hoteliere de Lausanne

• Boost to expand its mobile learning platform, and tap EHL expertise in the near future
• EHL is the world’s first hospitality management school and was founded in 1893

BOOST, a mobile learning solutions provider for the hospitality industry, announces a partnership with École hôtelière de Lausanne (EHL) that will see the Swiss hospitality management university make a strategic investment into the mobile technology learning firm.

This will allow Boost to continue to build its presence across the world of hospitality, expanding its suit of mobile learning solutions as well as tap EHL’s expertise built over more than one hundred years.

Boost’s platform leverages on mobile technology to provide a holistic team management system that brings together mobile learning, messaging, communication, recruitment (including assessment), measurement and organisational capabilities under a simple-to-use mobile umbrella.

“Since our founding in 1893, EHL have set the international standard for tertiary education in hospitality, with over 25,000 alumni going on to take leadership positions throughout the industry” says Rémi Walbaum (pic, above), chief innovation officer, adding “Innovation is one of our core values, and today in 2018 we see technology as a key means of learning both in schools and universities, and in the workplace, that is why we have decided to invest in Boost.

The needs of the industry are changing at an ever-greater pace, as are the language skills required by hotel employees, many of whom are more used to reading and learning from a screen than from a book. By developing our mobile learning capabilities we remain the forefront of hospitality, driving education, upskilling and learning, and helping talented students around the world build a successful and fulfilling hospitality career.”

EHL is the world’s first hospitality management school and was founded in 1893 to meet demand for more professionalised hospitality employees who could cater to the growing sophistication of hotel guests at that time.

The school pioneered hospitality education, mixing classroom-based teaching with hands-on learning in real hotels, all the while ensuring their curriculum met the demands of the industry at the time. The resulting graduates were thus able to leave the school equipped with the knowledge and skills to take leadership positions in the industry and drive innovation.

EHL’s presence in the mobile learning space will allow them to address many of the challenges faced by hotels today and in the future, namely the change in the way hospitality employees, many of whom are young, consume information and learn, and the need to meet the demands of guests whose expectations have risen in the age of social media and instant reviews.

“Boost’s suite of mobile learning solutions are tailor made for the hospitality industry, not only allowing individual hotel employees to learn new languages and other skills, but enabling management to organise their teams, recruit new team members and communicate better” says Allan Taylor (pic, above), managing director and chief commercial officer (CCO) of Boost, adding “20,000 hotel employees are already using our mobile learning solutions, we have seen them learn Mandarin allowing them to communicate with their Chinese guests, we have seen them learn how to upsell improving hotel revenues, and we have seen them learn many more skills vital to improving service and thus their hotel’s bottom line.

“Unlike traditional classroom-based teaching, mobile learning allows hotel employees to learn at a time and place of their choosing. Importantly, it is measurable and scalable, and available at an enterprise level allowing for group and team organisation, HR and recruitment functions and inter-team communication.”

The investment from EHL will allow Boost to continue developing its existing mobile learning solutions and develop new solutions to address the needs of the hospitality industry. Lastly, Boost will be able to tap the knowledge and expertise of some of the world’s leading thinkers, thought leaders and academics in the hospitality field, ensuring their mobile solutions are tailored to the unique and ever-changing needs of the industry.