Through their ongoing strategic partnership with UK-based company i-graduate, International Centre of Excellence in Tourism and Hospitality Education (THE-ICE) are delivering THE-ICE Benchmarking Rating Report (BR) as part of their survey deliverables for the first time in 2018.

From 2018 onward THE-ICE will be offering ‘THE-ICE Benchmark Rating Report’, analysed and collated by igraduate, in addition to THE-ICE ISBSBTM Survey reports as part of its deliverables to THE-ICE Full Members with AccreditationPLUS and Foundation Status, following a satisfactory pilot based on retrospective analysis of THE-ICE members’ THE-ICE ISBSB™ Survey 2017 findings.

The Executive Team are currently analysing results, which indicate that THE-ICE member institutions are leaders in the field of tourism, hospitality, events, and culinary arts education in key elements of student satisfaction, as benchmarked against the Global Index. For example, against the Global Index:

• Emirates Academy of Hospitality Management rated #1 for research.
• Glion Institute of Higher Education rated #1 for cultural experience.
• Lyceum of the Philippines University (LPU)’s Cavite campus rated #1 for learning and support overall, and living average. LPU Manila rated within the Top 10 for work experience and employability, and LPU Batangas rated in the Top 2 for learning overall, work experience, employability, training facilities, programme organisation, recommendation, and student happiness.
• MCI Management Center Innsbruck rated #1 for safety, good place to be, campus building and environment.
• Swiss Education Group campuses rated #1 for overall living and arrival, accommodation quality and topic selection, top 5 for student unions, and top 10 for expert lecturers, teachers and learning support
• Swiss School of Tourism & Hospitality rated top 2 for safety.
• NHL Stenden University University of Applied Sciences, The Netherlands rated #1 for class size, and top 5 for host culture and happiness.
• Stenden University Qatar rated #1 for language support, internet access, accommodation cost and quality, host culture and social activities.
• Torrens University Australia – Blue Mountains International Hotel Management School rated #1 for language support and top 5 for work experience.
• Torrens University Australia – William Blue College of Hospitality Management rated top 5 for accommodation quality, host culture, eco-friendly environment and arrival overall.
• University of the South Pacific rated top 5 for expert lecturers, employability and good contacts.
• University of Santo Tomas rated top 5 for worship facilities, host friends, formal welcome, accommodation cost and language support.
• William Angliss Institute rated in top 10 across elements within learning, living, and arrival, including elements of formal welcome, institution orientation, study sense, disability support, transport links, host culture, personal tutors, counselling, academics English and Assessments!

“We believe our annual benchmarking survey and the new rating reports provide depth of focus on student experience against global peer groups (Global Index and Global Tourism & Hospitality Index),” said THE-ICE Chief Executive Officer Ms Pauline Tang. “It will be a detailed reflection of teaching quality and education quality with input from students and student experience metrics on whether the learning and teaching environment is working for them.”

THE-ICE ISBSB is a collegial benchmarking and development program wherein “co-operative competitors” share anonymised performance measures, thoughts, and ideas to improve the quality of the overall TH&E education sector across the globe. THE-ICE’s interest in conducting this annual Survey is primarily for the ongoing internal quality assurance enhancement and improvement of THE-ICE member institutions and their respective education programmes.

It is the hope of THE-ICE that the Benchmarking Rating Report will help its Member Institutions to conduct informed internal quality assurance (IQA) reflections, future student retention and acquisition planning, to learn from each other and encourage them to think outside of their current environment, benchmarking themselves against others in the sector and providing a channel for the sharing of best-practice on common issues. THE-ICE’s focus in conducting these benchmarking activities and providing the ISBSB™ and BR reports is to assist its Member Institutions in fully understanding the experience of their students, across all programmes and types of students, both inside and outside of the classroom.