Sitting With A Faculty

Anthropology, eco - tourism , and sustainability - all these buzz words have one thing in common : professor Peter Varga . He is the one delving right into and exploring each of these topics in his courses at EHL . Read our interview with him to learn about his experience , what got him into this topic , his perspective on current world affairs , and on sustainability, of course

Interview with Peter Varga

Tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do at EHL .

PV: I started teaching at EHL in 2008, it ’s been 15 years now * laughs*. I actually came from a more tourism and sustainability background . I was working in different countries in the field of tourism . In Ecuador, the United States , and different parts of the world When I joined EHL , I taught sustainability, I taught a course titled ‘ Eco - tourism and Environmental Awareness ’, it was a mandatory subject for last semester students at the time .

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At the present, I have 3 subjects and 2 electives for BOSC 6 students One is entitled ‘ Corporate Social Responsibility and Sustainability Innovations ’ with a colleague of mine , professor doctor Martin Rios , and another is business Ethics , also for BOSC 6, with another colleague , MrJerome Bisière Lastly, I also teach a course for BOSC 3 students , titled Corporate Sustainability

If we go back 15 years , what made you choose to work at EHL?

PV: Good question . There are different reasons . A personal reason is that my wife is from the French region , around Evian . Upon moving moved back to Europe , I found myself attracted to joining academic institutions and , naturally, EHL seemed very interesting to me Also , they seemed to have a smart orientation and vision toward sustainability

On a more professional level , a lot has changed and evolved since , but another reason I joined EHL was to teach a course on Environmental Awareness and Eco -Tourism .

I also love the international context of the school , with so many students from different parts of the world , giving a nice cultural diversity. Being an anthropologist, I love this context of switching between languages , as I do with you * laughs*, around the food court and the halls - it ' s absolutely wonderful !

How would you describe the pre - Covid days and post - Covid days ?

PV: It ’s very difficult to speak about Covid as a positive outcome , but I believe there are some Of course , it ’s a very sad element of our history, but an important positive outcome could be the realization of the necessity of being environmentally sustainable .

I am saying this because , if we want to maintain the Paris agreement, then we should aim to live something similar to the pollution level we had during Covid time I mean , can you imagine that during that time most of us didn ' t take any flights ? People mostly stayed at home and this is something which would signify a more sustainable life (one where we pollute less , thus contributing less to climate change). I would say this whole experience has brought us awareness about how far we should go , and how we should live sustainably Of course , this is something difficult to imagine at the present time because it would be extremely challenging

I hope that post - Covid , people will also travel with more purpose ( i e not going for a shopping spree weekend to London , but rather, having a longer - lasting purpose); that people will adopt a kind of slower tourism and of course , realize that it is still possible to practice sustainability when we are traveling .

We won ' t stop traveling , but we can travel with more sustainability, awareness , and caution when we go somewhere I would say that this is the positive outcome : that people realize that we are fragile and that tourism is not something that will resist such a crisis . This is to say, we must be careful and mindful as to what kind of tourism we will practice in the future .

Along the same line of the topic , from your perspective , how has the pandemic affected the field of cross - cultural hospitality management ?

PV: I think Covid has made it very clear that, despite the fact that we believe that we are more and more globalized ( technologicallywise , communication - wise , transportationwise , business - wise , and even , to a certain extent, politically But not culturally I believe this is mainly because , regardless of where we were during Covid , the kind of decisions the government took depended a lot on the mainstream culture , causing safety decisions to be vastly different. And this is interesting because t allows us to observe a kind of cultural 'deglobalization '.

Of course , as time went by, Covid regulations ended up being better coordinated . But, especially at the beginning , it was very clear that we handled this difficult situation very differently I would say this is very much influenced by our cultural background , and to a certain extent, Covid may have shown us how different we are from one another

But in the last two decades , other nations appeared in great masses and we realized that we have very different cultures I believe hospitality is not completely ready for this and that hospitality managers , (even schools ), should pay attention to these more and more visible differences Cultural intelligence should be part of the business curriculum today.

Through our research in Geneva and other parts of the world , I realized that hospitality is not ready for this cultural complexity Employees handle foreign cultures because of SOPs but they don ' t really understand WHY those cultures are different. Additionally, it would be too much to expect that guests will change their behavior when they visit a country, especially if they are only staying a few days . They might adapt to some cultural specificities but, typically, it ' s the host culture that adapts to the guest

In this sense , I believe we should develop improved cultural intelligence and it should be much more part of hospitality education . And actually, this is what we are doing in BOSC 3 with the students . We discuss cross - culture theories - they even have a mid - term project about this .

To pick your brains on what you said about different restrictions from different cultures : was there a specific restriction that really surprised you coming from a specific culture during this pandemic ?

PV: I was actually surprised by the acceptance of so many restrictions in many countries Looking back , it is a very delicate topic . We should treat this problem as something normal and probably something that will be part of our future lives . Look at what is still going on in some countries in the world . I was surprised how in France , the country of human rights , people accepted all these restrictions If we are forward - looking , this raises lots of questions for the future - of what kind of control to accept

Moving outside of the pandemic , what would you say is , in your opinion , the next upcoming trend with regards to sustainability hospitality culture ?

PV: Right now, we have the knowledge of what we should do and what are the solutions for most of the problems , but we do very little to tackle this

So in this sense , we should be more pragmatic , aiming for tangible results When we speak about companies , for example , they report more and more on sustainability, which is great, but I think we need more than simply reporting what they would like to show We should have the government or legitimate certification agencies support this There should be more transparency and accountability so it would encourage people to choose sustainable solutions and not just talk about this

What are the biggest takeaways from your research experiences related to this field of expertise ? Considering the cultures you ’ ve met, what I one or even a couple of things you ’ ve learned from these experiences ?

PV: I like Ecuador very much and , actually, I will have a call with Ecuador later today * laughs*, but I think the biggest takeaway from my experience was working and living in the Ecuadorian Amazon rainforest

As you may know, I studied the anthropology of tourism and I am still in contact with those indigenous people from the Ecuadorian Amazon . And what I believe is the biggest takeaway is that we humans are very good at our basic foundations .

Of course , we can be vastly different When you are in the rainforest or in remote areas , you can live simply and you don ' t need as much . And that these people in remote areas are infinitely more sustainable than we are . We can learn a lot from these people who have been living in the same place , in harmony and in coherence with their ecosystem In Europe (and most countries ) we are very far from this balance

Let ' s wrap up on a happy note . Would you mind sharing one of the most memorable moments at EHL during these past 15 years ?

PV: There are various significant moments during these past amazing 15 years What I think is memorable is when you are in remote areas in the world or in places , where you really wouldn ' t expect, and you meet people from EHL . It ' s happened to me , in Thailand and in Japan . Obviously, EHL is everywhere These are very fantastic memorable moments

This article will be read by EHL Alumni globally Is anything you 'd like to share directly ?

PV: What can I say, it ' s always difficult because they are already professionals I would probably give a hint to our very recent alumnus , who just recently graduated . A kind of message that I would like to say is ‘ Do not rush ’.

Take some time , and reflect on what you really want to do , because these are really the best years of your life I think it ’s always good to take some time off after EHL , to travel , to understand what you like , and better understand yourself before moving to the next step in your life . If we jump into something that we are not so keen on , it may impact our future meaningfully I

So don ' t rush , enjoy life and when you know what you really want to do , then make the step .

INTERESTED IN THE TOPICS OF ECO-TOURISM, ANTHROPOLOGY OR SUSTAINABILITY?

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