To accomplish their goals, both of these local hospitality businesses partnered with Temple University’s School of Tourism and Hospitality Management.

Why Temple?

For the past six years, “Hotel/Lodging Operations Management,” an elective course for Tourism and Hospitality Management majors, has teamed up with regional entertainment venues and hotels for an ultimate hands-on learning experience: a sales blitz, which in the past has generated tens of thousands of dollars in bookings.

Blitz at heart of STHM class

Usually, a blitz is a one-day event where hotel sales executives make cold-calls in teams to secure bookings, create contacts and build a client base. In the STHM “Hotel/Lodging Operations Management” course, students become the sales representatives, learning first-hand how to develop new customers.

The class is taught by Greg DeShields, director of industry relations and STHM adjunct faculty member. He designed the class, with the sales blitz at its heart, to teach tourism and hospitality students the nuances of hotel sales and marketing.

“The good thing about a blitz is that it continues to expose students to the industry in the most integrated way,” DeShields said. “Ours is the only school in the area that does it. It has always been a success, and the employers are thrilled because the return on investment is huge. “

Last year, students generated $19,000 in definite bookings for the Marriott Courtyard in Bensalem in only three months. The year before that, they generated more than $48,000 over the course of the semester for Hersha Hospitality, Hampton Inn at Madison Square Garden. In 2003, students produced similar results in a blitz for the newly renovated Ritz Carlton–Philadelphia.

This year was the first that students worked on blitzes for two different venues.

They prepared ahead by reading about the hotels and about blitzes. Then, still early in the semester, sales representatives from each venue spoke to the class about what to expect during the blitz.

Tiffany Lewis, business development sales manager for the Fort Washington Hotel & Conference Center, explained to students, “The whole market needs to understand that we’ve completed our renovation, and that we are better than ever. We’ve called upon you to help us out.”

During that same class, Tyler Boob, a sales executive at The Hub, pointed to the students their untapped talent. “We like when people think out of the box, and your naiveté is a blessing, because what you don’t know is often your strength,” he said.

Blitz days arrive

When each blitz day arrived, the hotels hosted the students for a final orientation. The students practiced role-playing sales techniques and stocked up on give-a-ways for potential clients.

During the first blitz, which was for The Hub, students made cold calls by phone and in person.

“The Hub had call-backs before the end of the day,” said Laurie Harrelson, (STHM, College of Liberal Arts ’08), a student whose group traveled to businesses.

“Everyone was excited and we learned a lot, which was great,” she added.

The next week, on the day of the Fort Washington Hotel & Conference Center’s blitz, a snowstorm hit, forcing a restructuring of the originally planned in-person calls. Thinking on their feet, hotel management and the students changed the blitz to an inside telemarketing campaign.

Fort Washington Hotel & Conference Center sales manager Tiffany Lewis said, “Of all of the lessons learned by the students during this hands-on experience, one of the most valuable is that if plan A fails to come to fruition, there should always be a plan B ready. The change to a telemarketing plan was very successful.”

“I was nervous when I first found out about the blitz,” said Caitlin Druding (STHM ’09), a student in the class. “But now that we’ve been through it, I think that it was an amazing learning experience. It showed me how to interact with people better and how to sell. My team did very well and got some good leads.”

Blitz benefits: hands-on experience and more

Not only do students learn a lot during the blitz, some end up with jobs. Four students have landed jobs with the hotels they blitzed for in past years. This year, scouts at the Fort Washington Hotel & Conference Center and at The Hub were trying to identify students with hospitality sales talent.

“This is also a recruiting trip for The Hub,” Tyler Boob told students. “You are the diamonds in the rough, and we want to see you perform. We want awesome talent, and Temple has been producing that.”

But for those with other career dreams, the blitz is still an exceptional learning opportunity.

Said Greg DeShields, “The blitzes are a nice balance between academia and industry. The hotels realize the value of education, and they work with us to coordinate positive learning outcomes.”

And those outcomes are evident in the large number of bookings the hotels have received in past years and continue to receive this year.

Providing context for the blitz, Ron Callari, vice president of sales and marketing for Marshall Management Inc., which manages the Fort Washington Hotel & Conference Center, said, "As part of the students' curriculum, they are provided with very measurable goals where they can learn invaluable sales techniques within their own local Pennsylvania environs."

Student Nadia Forte (STHM, ‘08) summed up the benefits, saying, “I’m interested in destination marketing, and this experience in sales and marketing was really great for me. The Fort Washington Hotel & Conference Center and The Hub are in different fields and in different levels of the industry, so they provided a great combination of practice.

“Plus, I had fun.”