Paul Smith's College and the ARCC Partner on the Adirondack Craft Beverage Trail

GLENS FALLS, NY (09/09/2015)(readMedia)-- Each year Paul Smith's College offers a course to their hotel, resort, & tourism management majors called Field Studies in Hospitality. This class gives an immersive experience to the junior and senior level students in the realm of hospitality and gives the students a chance to create strategic management plans and review business standards and procedures to understand their current operations. With the success of the Adirondack Craft Beverage Trail, a program of the Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce and the launch of Paul Smith's College's craft-beer studies minor, the college has chosen to base the fall semester's field studies class on the trail and the craft beverage industry.

"Working with the Adirondack Regional Chamber of Commerce on the Adirondack Craft Beverage Trail is a wonderful opportunity for our Field Studies in Hospitality students to gain hands-on experience in the fast-growing craft beverage tourism industry," said Kelly Cerialo, professor of hospitality at Paul Smith's College. "The project supports the experiential learning component of our craft-beer studies minor by allowing students to develop cross-marketing strategies for a real-life craft-beverage program. We are very excited for this opportunity and believe the knowledge gained will be beneficial to everyone involved."

The students will be focused on completing a comparative analysis of other craft-beverage trails, developing a cross-marketing plan for local hospitality entities including restaurants, hotels and retailers and creating surveys to assess the economic impact of the proposed cross-marketing initiatives.

"The scope of what these students are going to do is beyond anything we could have hoped for," said Greg Chanese, project coordinator of the Adirondack Craft Beverage Trail. "We can't thank Paul Smith's College enough for selecting the Trail to base this semester's class on and for seeing the importance that the craft beverage industry has on the hospitality and tourism industry in our region."

On Sept. 8, the students took part in a specialized tour and met with a number of the craft-beverage makers who are part of the trail, as well as key stakeholders and other hospitality individuals impacted by the craft-beverage industry to gain a deeper understanding of the craft-beverage industry and its ties to hospitality and tourism.

At the end of the semester, the students will present the chamber with all of their findings and give a formal presentation to the ARCC Board of Directors followed by a roundtable discussion.