ITC gets global

May 2011

Students at the International Travel College of New Zealand (ITC) celebrated their annual Global Wednesday festival with a huge variety of food, costumes and entertainment.

ITC, which has campuses in Botany and central Auckland, has been a premium supplier of full-time and part-time training programmes for the airline, travel and tourism industries since 1996.

“Student events like Global Wednesday play an important part in the ITC experience,” says Marketing Director Claire Huxley. “Obviously, they’re a huge amount of fun, but they also get our students working together, thinking about other countries and cultures, and give them a taste of what it takes to put together an event like this.”

Each ITC class was assigned a country and had to organise costumes, food and entertainment for the big day. Countries for the 2011 Global Wednesday were India, South Africa, Japan, Jamaica, Spain, Brazil, Germany, Pacific Islands, USA, Mexico and Ireland.

Prizes were given on the day, and Campus Manager Michelle Chatfield and Academic Support Coordinator Caroline Phillips were this year’s judges. They had a hard time choosing the Best Food and Presentation award. A wide range of homemade food was presented and the Jamaican team went with a cocktail theme – presenting the students and judges with delicious non-alcoholic cocktails. South Africa was the winner on the day; not only did they have tasty food, but they had decorated the entire room with African items including a jungle safari area with huge stuffed tigers and lions. Dressed in African costumes, they played African-inspired music and danced as the judges walked through.

The Supreme Costume Award was another tough choice for the judges with Indian saris, Mexican Day of the Dead costumes and the German team decked out in red and yellow. But the Irish team, dressed in green, painted with shamrocks and accompanied by leprechauns won the prize.

The students had put a great deal of effort into the entertainment section of the day. “The teams really gave it all they had this year,” says ITC’s Recruitment Advisor Lesley Brough. “Group dances from Spain, Ireland, Mexico, South Africa and Brazil let the students show their moves, and the Jamaica class challenged the audience with a quiz, which they won an extra prize for.”

In the end, the judges couldn’t decide on a single winner and the Japan and India classes tied for the prize.

A number of spot prizes were given out with Best Costume winner Gordan Newman and Best Entertainer Ali Kutty winning Sky Tower Skywalk passes. The Best Dancer award was tied between Moli Tuigamala and Neelam Prasad, who was so outstanding she even had a costume change during the dance!

“It was a fantastic day,” says Lesley, “and what made it so special was all the hard work that the students put in to it. They had such a great day and are still talking about how much fun they had.”