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School for butlers opens in Brussels
Belgium's first school for butlers will open its doors in Brussels In September. The School for Butlers and Hospitality will offer four-week training courses, which will for the most part take place at the prestigious Hotel Plaza. "Until now, this type of course was only offered in the United Kingdom, the Netherlands or the United States", says managing director Vincent Vermeulen. "Not only do we offer the highest standard in traditional British butlering courses but we also prepare our students to face the challenges of the modern international household". Vermeulen graduated from the Ter Duinen catering college in Koksijde and worked as a butler abroad. "Belgium has so much to offer on an international level,” he says. “We have our top-notch gastronomy, and we also host several big organisations like NATO and the European Parliament. This brings a lot of opportunities for our students. We offer a traditional butlering course, but also specific courses for embassy staff. We have been officially recognised by London's British Butler Institute.” The training takes four weeks and, at €6,980 euros, isn’t cheap. "However, if you bear in mind that a junior butler can earn up to €50,000 a year and a senior butler up to €120,000, then it's worth the investment", says Vermeulen. "The fee also includes field trips to luxury brands, in Belgium and abroad, such as a renowned champagne house in France.”
Comments
We have contacted via email with SBH School in Brussels (franchised The British Butler Institute, London) kindly asked some simple training information for its program. Unfortunately, it was replayed, it wasn’t responded for six days. This has been very upsetting for all us. The reasons behind this outcome in light of the circumstances are simple. It is not a normally school but only a one individual’s own seminars. Itself is non-residential. The teaching courses are hosted within the La Plaza Hotel, rented spaces in Brussels. Program fee is €6980 but its educator and owner he forgot the including customer service to all prospectus students before enroll and before paying tuition. SBH fails to live up to TBBI’s reputation and to increase its chances, we are not with it happy.
We reserve the right to skip at its own judgment any course by any who proves to be inappropriately and discrepancy. This implies that the program and customer services must be meets the quality standards required by the professional services and UK’s legendary butler traditions. Britain has a history of the class system, customer and guest etiquette, household staff, great hospitality traditions but we have no more time for people and schools that portray to be the British butler training firms where cannot lead the customer basic etiquette and they make false promises.
In response to this incorrect information:
The start of School for Butlers and Hospitality was indeed a 4 week butler training in Le Plaza hotel in Brussels. The very first one was conducted by The British Butler Institute. Since the level of quality was not up to the standards of School for Butlers and Hospitality, we decided to no longer work with TBBI.
As an example: if we had not stepped in, not one student would have dressed a table.
4 years later, School for Butlers and Hospitality has grown to the number one butler training school in the world. Operating from its own 8000 square meters estate near Bruges. We train an 8 week butler program where students are working in the most realistic environment possible.
Not one single UK butler school can provide such an exceptional way of training. Almost all of them are training in seminar rooms which are not even located in high level hotels.
As to replying to enquiries, we have a policy of replying within 24 hours to every demand. Resulting this we have been training premium brands all over the world such as Mercedes-Benz, Brussels Airlines, Than hotels and many more.
The UK training methods were very efficient in the era of the 1950’s as where they are now romanticised on TV. We train our butlers for this century, not the previous one.