As the tourism industry swells in the Valley, so will the hospitality program at Grand Canyon University.
Starting next fall, the Colangelo College of Business will change one of its programs from hospitality to hospitality and tourism, with a tourism class added to the curriculum.
“That’s really because of our partnership with some of the destination marketing organizations like Visit Phoenix, Visit Mesa and Experience Scottsdale,” said Dr. Jennifer Elfenbein, CCOB hospitality management chair. “They come to our classes, and we’re like, ‘This isn’t just a one off.’ Our students need to know about destination management. And we’re also adding a club management course, which just makes sense in this market.”
According to the Arizona Office of Tourism, airport passenger traffic is up 7.9% this year, and national park visitation has climbed by 6.1%.
The Waste Management Phoenix Open and spring training traditionally attract a plethora of visitors from across the nation, and the Valley has been host to four Super Bowls since 1996.
The greater Phoenix area has more than 71,000 rooms at more than 550 hotels, according to Visit Phoenix. Those rooms are needed as 46.7 million people visited the Phoenix metro area, including 1.7 million international visitors.
The possibility of Arizona tourism returning to prepandemic numbers isn’t lost on the Hospitality Management Club at GCU and the Tourism Student Association at Arizona State University. The two clubs joined forces to conduct the first AZ Hospitality and Tourism College Student Summit from 6-8 p.m. today at the Joshua North Building.
This summit allows students pursuing this industry to collect in-person information, network and hear from the following experts: Kiva Couchon, director of Strategic Initiatives at the Arizona Office of Tourism; Kade Nelson, CEO/executive director of the Arizona Parks and Recreation Association; Patti Hunt, corporate director of operations, Stanford Hotels; and Angela Haning, vice president of human resources, Fox Restaurant Concepts.
The event is limited to 60 attendees, with unlimited spots on a virtual guest list.
The importance of adding tourism is essential to expanding the knowledge and versatility of students.
“This will help our students understand all of the component parts that it takes to grow an economy like the economy here in Phoenix, where so much of our industry and our value from an economic development perspective, is in the tourism industry,” CCOB Dean John Kaites said.
“It takes the student outside of just sports and outside of just hospitality and allows them to look broad-based at how you market destinations, how you grow events, how you build and organize major events in the Valley, and then how you plug in all of the different resources of the Valley into a tourism ecosystem, and we think that’s going to be really valuable. And there’s a lot of jobs at the other end of that program.”
At a Hospitality Club kickoff event last month at Cañón 49, at least one executive for a hotel chain was intrigued by CCOB’s plans to incorporate tourism into its hospitality program.
“It’s really a symbiotic relationship,” said Mark Gosiewski, revenue manager for Best Western Hotels. “You can’t have one without the other, and I’ve been on both sides of it.”
Gosiewski previously was a full-time musician traveling the world and understanding the consumer side. Gosiewski serves as a mentor in the Hospitality Mentor Program and is a frequent guest speaker in GCU’s revenue management class.
“This is the biggest private university in the country,” Gosiewski said. “I think the options are endless for this program, even with just the success of the basketball team and how much business that can generate.”
James Beatty, a sophomore hospitality management major from Colorado, said he’s “definitely interested” in the tourism component.
“I’m leaning more toward going into the hotel industry, but tourism is important,” Beatty said. “The travel aspect of hospitality is just as important, especially when you’re learning now to accommodate guests.”
The lengthy process of adding tourism started in May 2023, requiring new courses and approval of the university and Arizona State Board of Education.
But the process is destined to pay off starting next fall. The Arizona Lodging and Tourism Association sponsored a Hospitality Club event last month, and the CCOB was nominated as its member of the year and Elfenbein was honored for her community leadership.
“(Tour associations and communities) know our students are going to be at their events,” Elfenbein said. “They hire our students, and so it’s been really a pleasure, because I get the support from Jerry Colangelo, as well as the leadership at the Colangelo College of Business to be more involved in the community and at these industry events.”
GCU News Senior Writer Mark Gonzales can be reached at [email protected]
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