There’s no question a Hospitality and Tourism Management diploma from RRC Polytech can take you places, as grads and practicum students alike land in workplaces as varied as mountain lodges in Banff, Alberta, to northern outposts among the polar bears in Churchill, Manitoba.

For Mitch Hyndman, though, it’s hard to beat a career in as far-flung a place as New Zealand, where he’s excelled in hotel and wine tourism for much of the last 16 years.

“I’m from small-town Manitoba, just north of Brandon,” says Hyndman, who graduated from RRC Polytech in 2007. “Back when I was studying, they said you can go anywhere in the world — and my mom’s uncle was down here. I decided to go check it out.”

Today, Hyndman is working at Pernod Ricard Winemakers, the second largest alcohol and wine producer in the world. He’s the Brand Home Manager at Church Road Winery — located in picturesque Hawke’s Bay, just a stone’s throw from the Pacific Ocean. Church Road offers wine tastings, winery experiences, large-scale events, and also features a restaurant, with Hyndman overseeing all of it and maintaining consistency in customer experience.

“It’s quite multi-faceted what I do,” says Hyndman. “I’m leading a team, including HR and payroll, but it’s also quality control, keeping everything up to what our standards need to be. We’re also a marketing business in some capacity, so it’s ensuring that everyone who comes through the door has the best brand experience possible.”

Before landing in the current role, which he’s held for eight years, Hyndman bounced back and forth between New Zealand and Canada — working more than half of the time at hotels, including the Delta and Fairmont in Winnipeg, and a luxury lodge back on the island. There were some challenges along the way, including coming to New Zealand’s capital for a practicum and having it fall through on arrival.

“In New Zealand, there’s lots of transient people, a lot of people that come here on a working holiday visa. I was supposed to do a practicum up in Auckland, but it fell through because I came in May — you’d think that would be a great time to come, but it’s the start of winter here — so the hours for the tourism sector were declining at that stage. There wasn’t as much happening as in the summer.”

“So the first practicum fell through, which I had lined up before I came. I had to find something else when I got here. With that, I got an exception and was able to graduate with the rest of my class.”

Hyndman says his RRC Polytech experience laid a solid foundation for the learning he’s done since, with each workplace adding to the skillset he now needs to perform in a management role.

“It’s just the introduction to tourism, learning that it’s about expectations, understanding what people are wanting, and listening to them — those were the biggest takeaways [from RRC Polytech].

“For what we do at Church Road, all our visitors are at different stages. Some people are new to wine and some are old, so it’s one of those things to ensure you’re actually listening so you can provide a good experience.”

Beyond the essential skills of active listening and being able to execute what the customer is looking for, Hyndman says real hands-on time in a restaurant during the program gave him a leg up in the early days of his career.

“Restaurant layout, order of service, everything provided in the program is such a great benchmark; but once you get into the industry, you’re learning as you go, too. It’s being agile but also having that great foundation. Once you have that foundation, you have an understanding of what you’re trying to do.”

Of course, dealing with disruptions has been a big part of the job for Hyndman and for those across the hotel and tourism industry over the past two years. At the onset of the pandemic, he says that New Zealand was no different than many other countries — despite a more cohesive, effective public health response — in that many businesses had to shut their doors and restructure their staff, including his.

“We closed for six months. In that period, I was re-deployed — I, along with a couple key team members, went to the winery and we learned more about the wine-making process and then we went to the vineyard and spent time out there.”

“The business decided to re-open a bit earlier than what was planned… but basically, it was a two-week period in September 2020, a really quick turnaround to hire new staff, train them all, and then we basically opened the door, which was an interesting journey.”

On the other side of that, though, is opportunity. Hyndman has plenty of expansion in mind for Church Road, with a major opportunity on the horizon for his business in the near future.

“It’s quite an exciting time for the Church Road brand. We’re primarily a domestic market here in New Zealand; however, now there’s an opportunity for our brand to grow internationally — so that’s very exciting.”

“Now we’re trying to learn how to change and pivot to ensure we’re attracting that market, but it’s also appreciating our loyal customers in New Zealand and Australia, rather than just forgetting about them and being an international brand. It’s quite an interesting balance that we’ll need to strike.”

Thanks to a solid foundation provided by RRC Polytech, Hyndman has been able to get in front of what’s ahead in the food and wine industry – even a pandemic – and as tourism once again begins to pick up steam, the future is looking bright.

Profile by John Gaudes (Creative Communications, 2012)