A Board of Advisers has been established for the Resort Tourism Management (RTM) program at Coastal Carolina University. The board, which consists of local, regional, national and international leaders, recently held its first meeting on Coastal's campus. Initially, the board is scheduled to meet twice yearly.

"The board will provide a bridge between the academic environment and the real world," said Peter Barr, dean of Coastal's E. Craig Wall Sr. College of Business Administration, which administers the RTM program. "They will consult with the university on curriculum, recruitment and development matters of the program. These selected industry experts have great knowledge of the tourism industry and will be tremendous assets to our program."

The RTM program Board of Advisers includes:

- Doug Billings, The Billings Group, LLC; - Clay Brittain, chairman of the board, Myrtle Beach National Golf Club, Inc.; - John Cot, president, The Cot Firestone Group; - Duncan Dickson, partner, A & D Partners, Inc.; - John Green, general manager, Wyndham Chicago; - Scott Harrelson, owner, Thoroughbreds Restaurant; - Ben Henry, Sandals Resort International; - Dottie Holland, executive vice president, Conway Chamber of Commerce; - Martha Hunn, CEO, Myrtle Beach Area Hospitality Association; - Buddy Jennings, director, South Carolina Department of Parks, Recreation and Tourism; - John Pharr, president, Strand Development; - John Reyelt, president, Gold Crown Management, Inc.; - Tom Sponseller, president and CEO, Hospitality Association of South Carolina; - Bob Wacker, RJW Consultants, Inc.; - Ashby Ward, president, Myrtle Beach Area Chamber of Commerce; - Doug Wendel, president and CEO, Burroughs & Chapin Company, Inc.; and - Bob Wood, president, The Alabama Theatre.

Students in Coastal's RTM program take specialized courses in the areas of marketing research, commercial real estate finance, public and private partnerships, and tourism planning. The students are also required to participate in four paid internship experiences totaling 1,920 hours during the four-year program. The internships include back- and front-of-the-house training during the freshman and sophomore years, training in hospitality and tourism sales during the junior year and a management training experience during the senior year.

Coastal recently announced the formation of an international exchange program for its RTM program with the Autonomous University in Barcelona, Spain, where students from both universities will travel abroad to participate in internships.