Vivek Pathak is the founder-director of Kolkata-based NIPS School of Hotel Management (estb. 1993), which offers undergraduate, postgrad, and diploma programmes in hospitality management. The school currently has 540 students tutored by 22 faculty on its muster rolls.

Newspeg.  In November, NIPS laid the foundation of a fully-fledged business-cum-training hotel on a plot adjacent to the institute which will admit its first customers in 2016.

History. The NIPS School was promoted 20 years ago with a first batch of 40 students and five teachers by Pathak, an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Social Welfare and Business Management, Kolkata and Centre for Tourism, Hospitality and Culinary Management, UK, who acquired valuable professional experience in Taj Bengal, Kolkata. Since then, the NIPS School of Hotel Management, housed in a 20,000 sq. ft three-storied building in Salt Lake City, has been developed into arguably eastern India™s top hospitality institute equipped with six spacious classrooms, a conference room, e-library, food and beverages lab, simulated restaurants, coffee shops and hotel rooms which can educate and train 1,600 students.

The school also offers short-term skill development programmes in hospitality management in partnership with the Central and West Bengal state governments. With its study programmes approved by the All India Council of Technical Education (AICTE) and given NIPS’ affiliation with the West Bengal University of Technology, its certification is accepted worldwide. Today, more than 60 percent of its alumni are working abroad with blue-chip corporates including Qatar Airways, Emirate Airlines and Disney Cruiselines among others and with Jet Airways, Leela Palace, Bangalore, JW Marriot, Chennai, ITC Sonar Bangla and Oberoi Grand, Kolkata, and Intercontinental Mumbai hotels in India.

Direct talk. Our curriculums are a blend of India’s rich heritage and culture and Western hotel and hospitality management practices. This enables NIPS students to acquire world-class contemporary education in the hospitality sector and shapes them into skilled professionals and industry leaders, says Pathak.

Future plans. With NIPS growing apace and set to enter into its œadult years, Pathak has chalked out a series of downstream diversification plans. During the next two years, we will replicate NIPS in all eastern and north-eastern states and establish boutique hotels staffed by our graduates in major cities of the region within the next five years. With national economic growth likely to pick up, there will be a spurt in domestic business travel. We want to be prepared for it, says Pathak.

Way to go!

Baishali Mukherjee (Kolkata)