Dong Jo Cho

Some years ago, Dong Jo Cho very nearly didn’t make it to New Zealand after missing his flight from Seoul’s Incheon Airport. The 20 year old laughs about it now, but it was a stroke of luck another flight was scheduled later that day.

Five years on, after studying first at Westlake Boy’s High School and then at Glenfield College in Auckland, he has made it to Queenstown Resort College where he is studying a Diploma in Hospitality Management.

Since arriving in New Zealand, Jo – as his friends call him – decided the hospitality industry was where he wanted to be.

“When I was at school I always wanted to do hospitality. I worked in a café in Auckland in a shopping mall – I liked it but it was really hard because it was the first time to work in hospitality”

“I was looking for a hospitality college and I compared QRC with other schools and chose here because the courses are short”

At 18 months long, the Diploma programme is shorter than most and aims to get highly qualified employees into the job market faster. The Swiss-based Diploma of Hospitality Management comes from the prestigious Cesar Ritz College and includes a six month, fully paid Internship. Students can transfer to either Cesar Ritz or, QRC’s second partner, the International College of Management , Sydney (ICMS) to complete a Bachelor programme.

“I’m aiming to do the Degree but first I want to get experience in Auckland then I want to transfer to Switzerland”

The mix of classroom-based theory and practical application in Queenstown’s Novotel Hotel suits Jo, who particularly enjoys the bar and beverage papers.

“I like practical things – I get better marks for it than theory because it’s hard to understand the English! But it’s still fun”!

So, with family back in Korea, a ‘think big’ attitude and an international qualification under his belt, Jo plans to trot the globe for the next few years working in an industry that allows him that luxury.

“I like Queenstown. It’s a nice place and very different from Auckland but sometimes I miss Korea. I like travelling – that’s why I’m doing hospitality. I want to become GM but, before this I want to be a concierge. But first I want to work in a bar but I will do another job after that. One day I will go back to Korea where I want to be a GM - and I will have good English”!