Nova School of Business & Economics (Nova SBE) and Westmont Hospitality Group (WHG), a global hotel owner-operator, have entered into an exciting partnership to develop and promote education in hospitality, tourism, and service management.

With excellence, innovation and impact at the core of its mission, Westmont Institute for Tourism and Hospitality (WITH), will bring a unique offering by combining practical hospitality knowledge within an academic and entrepreneurial setting. WITH will be a knowledge-based platform located at the Nova SBE Carcavelos campus to diversify the school’s ecosystem by providing young professionals and executives strong skills for the future.  

WITH will focus on creating and preparing the leaders and entrepreneurs of tomorrow within hospitality and tourism— an important industry for Portugal and globally. In the world today where face to face interactions need to be enhanced by good service for a positive experience, hospitality practices have become even more significant. Hospitality and tourism is a global industry and often a vital component of sustainable economic growth for developing countries — especially in Africa.

WITH hopes to create strong global leaders who can share their knowledge locally and around the world. With a goal to develop a leading institute in hospitality and tourism in all aspects of this multi-faceted industry, WITH aims to provide students with knowledge and expertise to prosper in this growing sector and to understand hospitality as a service that is relevant in so many countries and industries today.

The initial step of WITH will be to implement a new area of expertise in the Master’s in Management, which will be dedicated to Hospitality and Service Management and will commence its first program in September 2020. WITH will have strong corporate connections with strategic partners within the hospitality industry to provide students with well-rounded, hands-on experience to supplement their academic education. In addition, the institute will launch executive education courses and several initiatives such as conferences, debates, talks, and informal meetings to further enhance the hospitality and tourism education on campus.

This partnership reinforces the fundamental role that hospitality plays and how it can bring innovative approaches that will help students and professionals to act quickly and incisively.