Achieving Great Things...

On the 23rd of February, 2010, I was fortunate enough to attend a Manager for the Day program with Mantra Group, spending half the day at the Mantra Circle on Cavil and the other half at Mantra HQ in Surfers Paradise. I met Colin Stevenson, the Executive Assistant Manager, at 9:00am. We spent about half an hour looking at several reports from the day before which included comparing the number of rooms sold to the predicted forecast and incidents from the day before. We then spent another half hour touring most of the property (both front and back of house).

From 10:00am to about 11:45am I watched Colin, the General Manager and the Front Office Manager work on budgets and forecasting occupancy levels for next financial year. This was a rather repetitive, yet very important, process as occupancy levels were being predicted for not only the next years 12 months, but occupancy levels for different types of guests as well including FIT’s, MICE’s and government to name a few.

From 1:00pm to 5:30pm a group of us met with high level managers from the following departments at the Mantra Group HQ: Human Resources, Marketing, Sales, Finance, Revenue Management and Asset Evaluation. We spent 45 minutes with some of the highest ranking people within the Mantra Group organisation. It was an absolute privilege to talk to these six people and hear their own individual stories on where they began and the path they took to get to where they are now. They all offered great advice that you can only learn from experience.

I would suggest that anyone who is doing a Bachelor of International Hotel and Resort Management at Bond University participate in a Manager for the Day Program. These people have shown me that no matter where you start if you are willing to learn and work hard then you can achieve great things. This is probably the best experience I have had in my four semesters at Bond University and it is something that I will remember for a long time.