Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania - October 20, 1999 -  A group of hospitality training professionals lead by Kathy A. Bannan, former Corporate Director of Training for Interstate Hotels Corporation has formed Tiger Vision Hospitality Training based in Pittsburgh. The company's new training programs were test marketed to a select group of individual hotels and hotel management companies in July and August, and are now available to the worldwide hospitality industry. 

Bannan served as Corporate Director of Training during Interstate's reign as the number one hotel management for eight consecutive years until it was acquired by Patriot American Hospitality.  One of the important factors contributing to Interstate's past success in the hospitality industry, was the training and development programs created by Bannan and her staff.  There was a time when Interstate employees were known as the best trained professionals in the industry.  Bannan was hired by Interstate in 1989 to oversee a newly created training department.  During Bannan's tenure with Interstate, she created over thirty new training programs for the 20,000 Interstate employees around the world. 

Using her Interstate experience and her ten plus years in training in the airline industry, she and her staff have designed training programs that meet the needs of every aspect of the hospitality industry.  Programs are currently available for front line employees, supervisors, managers, and executive level positions with an organization.  They are available in self-study, on-site, and regional seminar formats.  Tiger Vision Hospitality Training believes that knowledge is power and by increasing the intellectual capital on all levels of an organization it will have a direct effect on retention, morale, job satisfaction and the bottom line.  These training programs offer  timely and cost effective resources for building and maintaining a continuous learning environment. 

Kathy Bannan is currently serving on the newly formed Meetings and Hospitality Partnership of Western Pennsylvania.  This partnership was created to help the meetings and hospitality industries in Pittsburgh  prepare for the anticipated new business in the city that will be generated by the new baseball and football stadiums, and the addition the Convention Center.  It is estimated that by 2002,. there will be approximately 2,000 new hospitality related jobs in Pittsburgh.  The Partnership is taking a proactive approach to ensure Pittsburgh is ready for this new business by creating customer service and hospitality  training programs and making them available for all service positions in the city.  The goal is to provide visitors with the ultimate customer service experience from the airport, to the cab ride, to the service at the hotel, to the dining experience and the ballpark or convention experience.