Train the Hospitality Workforce Nigeria's Growing Hotel Industry Needs

International hotel brands entering the Nigerian market — Marriott, Radisson, Hilton — consistently cite talent availability as their biggest operational challenge. Nigerian hospitality training is fragmented, largely theoretical, and not aligned with international brand standards. Graduates of hotel and tourism programmes cannot pass the practical competency assessments used by international hotels. The result is that good hospitality jobs go unfilled or are filled by underperforming staff. Your challenge is to design a practical hospitality workforce training programme that produces graduates who pass international hotel brand competency assessments in front office, food and beverage, and housekeeping operations. The programme must be completable in six months, cost under ₦150,000 per graduate, and include a guaranteed job placement partnership with at least five hotels. Submit a programme design document (max 12 pages) including: curriculum aligned to international brand standards for each department, hands-on practice model, international brand engagement strategy, job placement partnership structure, cost per graduate model, graduate outcomes tracking, and a plan to train 1,000 graduates per year across three cities. Judging criteria: 35% curriculum quality and international brand alignment, 30% hands-on practice design, 20% job placement partnership model, 15% cost and scale plan.