HUGH WINT, the self-assured, suave, and immensely experienced hospitality dynamo has returned to his roots in tourism as the new general manager of the Runaway Bay HEART Hotel and Training Institute in St. Ann.

It was Wint who was at the helm in the early 1980s when the World Bank provided a loan to the Jamaican Government to build a training hotel, the first of its kind in the English-speaking Caribbean.

"I was at the Jamaica Tourist Board at the time when a manager was needed for the new training hotel, which was to be located on the site of the old Runaway Bay Country Club that had fallen into ruin. I was approached and accepted, and as they say, the rest is history."

CONTRIBUTED - Hugh Wint ­ experienced hospitality dynamo.

QUALIFIED WORKERS

Hugh and his young team then set about getting the training hotel off the ground and to prepare qualified workers for the hospitality industry which was growing at the time.

The concept of a training hotel, though new to the tourism sector, was not novel to Hugh because he had been exposed to it while studying hospitality in Austria.

"I really go back 30 years in tourism. Initially, I actually wanted to do medicine at the University of the West Indies, but when I did not get in, I pursued a degree in the natural sciences but left in 1975 without a burning passion to continue in the sciences. I just didn't want to see any more test tubes," recollects Hugh.

USHERED INTO THE INDUSTRY

The career hotelier says that's when he was ushered into tourism, at the behest of a few close friends who felt he was perfect for the industry.

"So, I went to the Jamaica Tourist Board in 1975 as a product standards officer, driving all around Jamaica to check properties and cruise ships to ensure they were compliant with industry standards."

Then, two years later, the Organisation of American States (OAS) offered Hugh the opportunity to pursue a fellowship in tourism at the famed Schloss Klesheim in Salsburg, Austria, where he met outstanding tourism professionals like Josef Forstmayr, now the boss of the Round Hill Hotel in Hanover. He grabbed the opportunity with both hands and since then he has not looked back.

"I was in Austria for over a year and that experience really opened my eyes as to what was possible in the hospitality industry. I saw the young Austrians being trained in the tourism and services industry from as early as 12 years old to ensure that they would be experts in the field. Training was a key plank for their industry and that's why I was so excited about the prospects of a training hotel in Jamaica."

On his return from Austria, Hugh went back to the JTB, and then had stints at the Upper Deck hotel in Montego Bay, and the first Hedonism property, before again returning to the tourist board as director of standards in 1983.

OPPORTUNITY TO LEAD

Then came the opportunity to be at the helm for the start-up of the training hotel in Runaway Bay in 1985. Hugh salivated at the thought of being given an opportunity to build something along the lines he had seen in Austria. "When Runaway Bay HEART was being established, memories of Austria came surging back and I wanted Jamaica to have something like that. Something special."

LARGEST TRAINER OF HOSPITALITY WORKERS

After months of hard work and attention to detail, the Runaway Bay HEART Hotel and Training Institute, opened in September 1986 with its first non-residential cohort starting their classes in November that year. Over the past 20 years, the Institute has been the single largest trainer of workers for the hospitality industry in Jamaica and many of its graduates hold senior positions in the tourism industry in the Caribbean and internationally.

Hugh, who also holds a Bachelor of Science degree from the University of the West Indies and a Master of Science in
hospitality management from the International Management Centres Association (IMCA) and Revans University, left Runaway Bay for stints in other places in the hospitality sector, but he admits that none of those jobs provide the satisfaction that a training hotel gives ­ that of moulding young Jamaicans into fine and outstanding workers for the sector.