A TOP executive at a leading New Forest hotel has just returned after "graduating" from America's prestigious Cornell University.

Steve Elliott, who is deputy general manager at the Carey's Manor Hotel, won his trip to the USA in a national competition run by the Worshipful Company of Innholders.

The contest, which attracted hundreds of entries, involved a written examination and then a searching interview for the short-list of nine, including management representatives from such hotels as the Gleneagles, Turnberry, Hanover International and the Dorchester.

Mr Elliott, 30, who has been at Carey's Manor for six-and-a-half years, won one of two scholarships for an intensive 13-day management course at Cornell, which was attended by 62 managers from hotels in 29 countries including the UK, Holland, India, Canada, Malaysia, South Africa and Kenya.

The course included lectures by the general manager of a top Beverley Hills hotel and a special internet session with experts from Microsoft.

It also featured marketing and human resources initiatives and left its graduates as associate members of the Cornell Society.

"It was an outstanding course and I hope to put it to good use," said Mr Elliott, who worked in Manhattan, London and Zurich before heading for Carey's Manor, first as assistant manager and then as deputy general manager.

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