ROANOKE TIMES 
                      Copyright (c) 1997, Roanoke Times

DATE: Friday, April 11, 1997                 TAG: 9704110051
SECTION: BUSINESS                 PAGE: B-8  EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: MARK CLOTHIER THE ROANOKE TIMES

TECH HOSPITALITY STUDENTS GET TASTE OF THEIR CHOSEN FIELD FILLING THE ROOMS AT THE INN

The program has benefits for both the hotels and the students. Hotel sales staffs get leads to follow up and students get to see how selling is done in the real world.

It took a war to bring Nabil Ali from Kuwait to the lobby of the Days Inn in Christiansburg.

Oddly enough, the Persian Gulf War also opened lots of opportunity in the hospitality field.

Before, Kuwaiti hotels were run by foreigners. Now, Kuwaitis staff them. To keep that personnel pipeline full, students like Ali are given government scholarships to study hospitality management.

In Ali's case, that meant attending Virginia Tech. And a course in hospitality sales took him Thursday to the Days Inn.

Thirty percent of that class's coursework involves a few days spent digging for prospects for hotels' sales staffs.

Instructor Howard Feiertag's been using the real-life method for about three years, which makes Tech part of a minority among the 174 four-year schools that offer hospitality management programs, he said.

This year, students canvassed businesses in the Roanoke and New River valleys for the the Days Inn, Holiday Inn, AmeriSuites, the Hyatt hotel at Dulles Airport in Northern Virginia and the Donaldson-Brown Hotel and Conference Center.

The program has benefits for both the hotels and the students. Hotel sales staffs get leads to follow up and students get to see how selling is done in the business world.

Ali was paired with Mark Bryan and given a territory: parts of northern Blacksburg and Salem.

Their job is to ask companies things like how often they use hotels and who makes those decisions. This information gives the hotel sales staff a name to ask for later when they're trying to drum up business for their meeting space and hotel rooms.

For students like Ali and Bryan it gives a taste of their chosen profession.

"This is totally different than sitting in class and having a professor teaching you about it," Ali said.

Neither plans to go into sales after graduation, but both said they now have an increased appreciation for the department in which they might have to start.

"The sales department is what makes the revenue of the hotel," Ali said. "Good sales department, good revenue."

LENGTH: Medium:   59 lines
ILLUSTRATION: PHOTO:  ALAN KIM THE ROANOKE TIMES. In the photo above, Mark 
          Bryan (left) and Nabil Ali study a map of Christiansburg. Below left
          (from left) Ali, Bryan and fellow students Alyson Dow, Lynette 
          Nolley, Julie Strong and Lisa Cobb get ready to make sales calls for
          Days Inn. color.