Hotel Hotspot

Turkish native and University of South Florida Sarasota-Manatee administrator Cihan Cobanoglu has been on eclectic worldwide field trip lately, with stops from Taiwan to Tunisia and Germany to Peru.

The main purpose of the journeys is to recruit students for USFSM. But Cobanoglu, dean of the College of Hospitality and Technology Leadership at USF Sarasota-Manatee, aims to do more than pad the school's student enrollment. A onetime hotel manager at properties in Istanbul and London, Cobanoglu, pronounced Jee-han Cho-ban-o-loo, also wants to ensure USF hospitality students get a global hospitality education.

Study aboard programs are valuable, Cobanoglu says, but can be cost-prohibitive for many students. So Cobanoglu will instead import the education by bringing in students from other places. Those students will then share their experiences with American students. “Every business has a global part right now and hospitality is no exception,” Cobanoglu says. “Everything is targeted to give our students a global culture.”