Students from West London College taking Travel and Tourism courses have staged the International Village – Celebrating Diversity Festival 2023.
The exhibition saw student teams create fourteen interactive stands featuring a variety displays to promote the countries.
Countries and regions represented at the event were: Brazil, Columbia, Egypt, Grenada, India, Jamaica, Japan, Morocco, Philippines, Poland, Spain, Turkey, United States and the islands of Hawaii.
Each country was promoting itself with the aim to be the winner through a variety of creative ways including food, artefacts, games, quizzes and brochures.
Stands were judged on a variety of criteria to recognise the work that had gone into them and students were presented with certificates.
Coming first was India for Best Overall stand while Columbia came second place and Poland was third.
Winning country India also had students from India with Prinal Dhiru, Divyangi Samji and Inoshka Estibeiro bringing their inside knowledge of the country.
Travel and Tourism student Prinal said: “India is a fascinating country for tourists to visit. There are so many cultures, customs, religions, languages – and there are many exciting festivals to go to from Holi to Navratri.”
Team Spain made T-shirts for the occasion and were selling cinnamon dusted churros and giving away potato and onion tortilla. Monika Nedeliaj said: “None of our team are from a Spanish background, so we learned so much about the huge variety of landscapes, cities and regions in Spain in creating our stand for the Festival.”
Team Grenada displayed brightly dressed mannequins in carnival costumes, played songs by Grenadian artists and sold local delicacies. Dressed in specially designed ‘It’s in my DNA” T-Shirts, using the colours from the Grenadian flag, Team captain Camol Bethel said: “The International Village Festival brings everyone together to work on creating something amazing and unique.”
Travel and Tourism Teacher Peter Smith said: “I’m thrilled that after months of hard work our Travel and Tourism Level 3 students have succeeded in creating this stunning event.
Mr Smith added: “It would have been impossible to stage a festival of this scale without the Travel and Tourism Level 3 students’ dedication but also the dedication of their friends, families and supporters, many of whom attended the event. My special thanks go to the Estates Team who set up and took down the display equipment, the Cleaning Team before and after, Chef Lecturer Bob Curruthers from Hospitality and Catering who helped students to prepare food, and of course my Travel and Tourism colleagues Shirley Noel, Tracey and Dinesh Hirani.”
