Fairmont Hotels & Resorts Expands Hospitality Leadership Programs with eCornell

ITHACA, NEW YORK, February 21, 2012 -- Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, a leader in the global hospitality industry, has extended its professional development contract with eCornell through 2014. eCornell is entering its sixth year of providing online professional development programs for Fairmont's global workforce. In that time, Fairmont has experienced brand growth around the world and now operates more than 60 hotels in 16 countries.

"eCornell has been an excellent complement to our core leadership development offering for the past 5 years," said Fairmont's Matt Smith, Vice President Human Resources, Europe, Middle East, Africa and Asia Pacific. "We have seen increased enrollment year-over-year with an 83% increase in 2011. The eCornell courses, which are strongly endorsed by our senior leaders, are very popular, as evidenced by the overall satisfaction scores our learners give the eCornell experience. Our organization benefits greatly from our leaders who have taken courses due to industry relevance and immediate applicability of the course concepts to the workplace."

Fairmont boasts a 93% course completion rate, with over 1,400 virtual classroom seats filled in 2011. Students surveyed after completing each online course rated the immediate applicability of program content to their job at 4.62 out of 5.

"We partner with eCornell to deliver world-class training that helps Fairmont achieve its strategies and maximize business results for all our constituents," added Smith. "Professional certificate programs such as the Master Certificate in Hospitality Management, Hotel Revenue Management, Executive Leadership and Financial Management for Non-Financial Managers are popular programs that elevate our leaders to a performance level that gives us a distinct advantage over many of our global competitors."

All of eCornell's online programs are authored and facilitated in partnership with faculty from Cornell University at the globally recognized and top-ranked School of Hotel Administration, School of Industrial & Labor Relations and Johnson Graduate School of Management.

"We are delighted to be serving Fairmont in such a highly-valued capacity to develop their employees worldwide to improve organizational capability, property performance and maintain its highly-recognized brand standards," said Tom Abogabal, Vice President of Global Sales for eCornell. "Fairmont has demonstrated its commitment to employee development, from individual contributors, aspiring managers, new supervisors/managers to high-potentials and senior managers and leaders. It's why Fairmont is one of the leading luxury brands in the world."

"Fairmont has demonstrated tremendous year-over-year growth in terms of employee utilization of online learning, and is on par or exceeding the usage of other large organizations that have implemented the eCornell solution," explained Abogabal. "We certainly champion Fairmont as a best practice approach when asked for examples of successful deployment models."

eCornell's unique approach to e-learning combines the most effective elements of an Ivy League classroom with the flexibility of an online learning environment. eCornell courses—while self-paced and 100% online—are "instructor-facilitated" to help guide a cohort of 20 to 30 participants through challenging, real-world exercises with practical application on the job. Built-in collaboration features enable learners to share experiences, best practices and discuss on-the-job application attempts while immersed in learning that fosters collaboration, interaction and networking amongst the cohort.

About Fairmont Hotels & Resorts
Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, which will arrive in destinations as diverse as Jaipur, Kyiv and Manila in 2012, is a celebrated collection of more than 60 luxury properties around the globe, including Shanghai's Fairmont Peace Hotel, The Plaza in New York, and Makkah Clock Royal Tower in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The luxury brand's distinctive hotels offer a sense of heritage and sophistication, warm, engaging service and culturally rich experiences. A community and environmental leader, Fairmont is also recognized internationally for its responsible tourism practices and award-winning Green Partnership program. Fairmont is owned by FRHI Holdings Limited, a leading global hotel company with over 100 hotels under the Fairmont, Raffles and Swissôtel brands. The company also manages Fairmont and Raffles branded estates and luxury private residences. For more information visit www.fairmont.com.

About eCornell
eCornell, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Cornell University, provides many of the world's leading organizations with online professional and executive development in the areas of leadership and management, human resources, financial management, healthcare, marketing and hospitality management. eCornell's proven course development model and asynchronous instructor-led course delivery provide for engaging, rigorous and interactive learning. The company has delivered online courses to more than 50,000 students in over 200 countries. For more information visit www.ecornell.com/enterprise (enterprise buyers) or www.ecornell.com (small groups and individual students).