Catering rise after course split

By Maggie Taggart
BBC NI Education Correspondent

There has been a 20% increase in applications to University of Ulster hotel management courses, the university has said.

In 2003 the UoU merged with Portrush Catering College and moved hotel and tourism management courses there.

Industry chiefs predicted a slump in numbers and the university has now closed the site altogether.

The UoU is splitting the courses between Belfast and Coleraine and applications have begun to rise.

The university is to sell the site and it could bring in a profit of £15m.

The hospitality industry has said that it is happy about the change, but that it proves what it claimed in 2003, that the university wanted to expand and to get the land in Portrush.

Howard Hastings, managing director of the Hastings Hotel Group, said the merger had been opportunistic.

"The move to subsume Portrush Catering College into the university was opportunistic on behalf of the university by way very much of a land grab," he said.

The money raised will be reinvested in the university, but the hospitality industry said it should be spent on courses related to hotels and tourism.

A university spokesperson said that the institution did not share Mr Hasting's views, and added that the reshaping of the university's provision in hospitality and tourism management "represented the best way forward for meeting the future development and skills needs of this important economic sector".