industry.

Belmont Hotel and the Sonesta Beach Hotel & Spa have adopted Warwick Secondary School, offering senior students an opportunity to experience their day-to-day workings first-hand.

The idea was born by Belmont's general manager, Mr. Adrian Constant and its public relations officer, Mr. Gary Burgess.

"It's not just to induct them into the hotel industry,'' said Mr. Burgess.

"We want to try and help out our community.'' He said the choice was made to select Warwick Secondary and not Warwick Academy as it already benefits from various donors.

Mr. Burgess said Sonesta asked to join the plan.

"We will be actively starting in September,'' said Mrs. Teri Seymour, Sonesta's human resources director. "Our primary objective is to work with senior students. We want to expose them to the good side of the industry rather than the negative side they see through the media. We hope out of our efforts, we will get a few Bermudians who come into the business because of their experience.'' Mrs. Seymour said the hotel would be contributing to different financial needs of the high school and representatives would be addressing the assembly on various topics throughout the year.

"The owner of the hotel, Mr. Paul Sonnabend, is also very excited about this,'' she said. "He will be addressing the assembly later in the year. He wants to get personally involved.'' She said that the hotel will offer a day release programme to one or two students at a time and would give tours to small groups, hosted by managers of different departments.

Mr. Burgess said Belmont will offer a complimentary trip to London to "the most improved student''.

"It will be someone who has maybe been flunking all year but at the end, has come third in his class -- the most improved person.'' The student will spend a week or two at Grosvenor House, one of the Forte Hotels associated with Belmont, receiving passes to historical sites to learn more about the country.

Another venture, to operate in a similar fashion to that of day-release programmes, will enable students to spend one day a week working in various parts of the Warwick hotel.

Mr. Burgess said a student could experience the "whole academic business of any society'' by observing the workings of different departments such as accounts, mechanics, kitchens, or through dealing with actual hotel guests.

Guidance counsellor at Warwick Secondary, Mr. Lee Holder said the idea was a "great one''. He said out of a total of 45 fifth years eligible to participate in the day release programmes for the past school year, 16 were interested in a workplace in the hotel/tourism area.

"We didn't have a hospitality programme last year after our communications with Bermuda College died off. We haven't had one since the 1991 school year.

We do have a number of kids who want to do it. But we found very few opted to do so when it was offered to us by the Bermuda College. It may just be that they enjoy working in that field, but don't want to do the studying.

"Belmont wants to foster the image of being a community hotel,'' he said.

"We love it and we're grateful. It goes hand in hand as we're two of the major institutions in the parish.''