Isabella Losurdo

Kelly Simmons

Losurdo, a Milton,Ga., native helps a gues over the phone, as she works the Concierge station.
Photographer Abby Benefield

Isabella Losurdo began work as a Marriott Voyage program manager-in-training at the downtown Atlanta Westin Peachtree Plaza Hotel two months after graduating from UGA. A month later, she was managing 70 housekeepers, maintaining their schedules, and overseeing payroll.

In addition, Losurdo was working with other employees to define critical work processes, such as determining how many housekeepers would be needed each day based on projected occupancy rates that night.

The responsibility could have overwhelmed a different college graduate just weeks into their first job. But the prestigious Marriott Voyage program only takes top graduates who have had to log a significant number of hours in internships to earn their degrees.

Losurdo earned her bachelor’s degree from the University of Georgia’s Hospitality and Food Industry Management program and had learned about the inner workings of hotels through the UGA Center for Continuing Education & Hotel, an on-campus, hands-on learning lab for students in the HFIM program. She worked at the center for three years, including at least 400 internship hours, rotating through the hotel’s front desk and concierge service.

At the Westin, her training program requires six months in housekeeping and six month at the front desk. While the Westin is much bigger than the Georgia Center, the lessons she learned there helped prepare her for her current job.
“I really got to see how a hotel worked,” she says, “and the skills are transferrable to a (larger) hotel.”

Losurdo, a Milton native who transferred to UGA her sophomore year, spent three years in Athens working at the Georgia Center as both an intern and a student worker. Rotating between the front desk and the concierge position, she spent a lot of time engaging with guests and found it was something she really enjoyed.

“I got to work (football) game days. It was like being a part of the campus,” Losurdo says.

The experience and mentorship were amazing. I don’t think I would have gotten that anywhere else.