“Good Management Means Caring”: The First Class of the Master's Degree Hospitality Service design Management Graduates
The School of Applied Management program School of Applied Management a pioneer in integrating design service management within the broad hospitality sector
23 | 07 | 2026
“Good management means caring” is one of the most valuable lessons learned by the students in the first graduating class of Master's Degree design Hospitality Services Management at the School of Applied Management at the University of Navarra. Victoria Rodríguez, director of Master's Degree professor in the School of Economics, recalled this during the graduation ceremony the program’s first graduating class.
The quotation place on July 18 at the postgraduate program headquarters postgraduate program Madrid and symbolized “the successful launch of an Master's Degree that offers a new interdisciplinary educational framework in which students tackle real-world problems from a philosophy of care,” recalled Cóilín O’hAodha, director the School of Applied Management.
The program trains students in the area hospitality from the perspectives of psychology, design , sustainability, human resources, operations and accounting management, food and health, as well as short-, average long-stay services. This educational ecosystem educational made possible by a faculty composed of professors from the School of Applied Management, the Higher Technical School of Architecture, the Schools Law, Economics, Nursing, Pharmacy, and Nutrition, the IESE Business School, and the Clínica Universidad de Navarra.
Put internship into internship
Aitor Acilu, a professor at the Higher Technical School of Architecture and the class patron alongside Cristina Bofarull, director of CEICID, and Nacho Contreras, managing director ADLANTO and a professor in Master's Degree, referred to the new “superpower” that the graduates have acquired by completing the program: “You have learned that hospitality is not just about providing a service, but about thoughtfully considering how we want someone to feel. Excellent hospitality is almost never flashy, but it changes lives in everyday ways.”
As a new expert in the area, Elle Arnold, a graduate and representative of the first class, confessed that, from the inside, hospitality isn’t experienced as a profession, but rather as “an implicit way of being.” After learning how to make people feel cared for, “you begin to recognize that infrastructure everywhere—in the small acts of generosity that are repeated every day.”
