Les Roches International School of Hotel Management

Les Roches International School of Hotel Management is a private university located in the Swiss Alps in the Canton of Valais. Since 1979, Les Roches offers hotel and tourism management programs taught entirely in English. The Les Roches campus is home to approximately 1200 students from 87 different countries every semester, with an additional 580 students on internship around the world at any time.

Les Roches offers a range of undergraduate, graduate and postgraduate courses in the field of hospitality management with branch campuses in China, Spain, and the USA.

The mission of Les Roches is to prepare students for an international career in the service industries. Les Roches maintains close ties with the hotel and tourism industry through a panel of industry advisors from four major hotel chains.

The Ecole des Roches, an international boarding school for young people, was founded in 1954 by Messrs Marcel and Jean-Pierre Clivaz. In 1979, Les Roches International School became “Les Roches” Hotel and Tourism School and was the first hospitality school in Switzerland to offer all courses in English. The main campus was virtually destroyed by a fire in April 1985. Despite considerable destruction to the property and its contents, the school only lost one day of classes as arrangements were made to house students and teaching facilities in three hotels in Montana, which were rented for a three-year period. Construction of entirely new buildings began in May 1986. In June 1987, the school moved into its new buildings.

The Les Roches campus stretches across the village of Bluche in the heart of the Swiss Alps. Located at 1,200 meters of altitude, the campus has a mountain climate and a panoramic view of the surrounding region. The campus features three academic wings with 30 classrooms, two computer labs, one demonstration kitchen and demonstration bar, a reception, a mock hotel room, a housekeeping practical classroom, two professional kitchens and two auditoriums. The renovated library offers 10,000 academic titles and 2,000 DVDs and CDs in addition to the 7,000 online academic journals and the separate media center.

Student accommodations are spread throughout the village in 16 separate buildings with different types of room options. All rooms and buildings have internet access, with wireless internet available in the main building. Dining rooms in the campus include a restaurant for a buffet style meals, another restaurant for fine dining, and the lobby bar for snacks and drinks during school hours. A third restaurant, the Café du Village, is located in the village for casual meals at lunch and after-hours.

The Les Roches campus provides a number of sport and recreational facilities including fitness center, gymnasium, basketball and volleyball courts, a football field, and outdoor swimming pool. Within ten minutes by train, students can also visit Crans-Montana for night-life and shopping.


Les Roches is accredited at university level by the Commission on Institutions of Higher Education of the New England Association of Schools and Colleges in the United States. This accreditation entitles Les Roches to deliver internationally recognized undergraduate degrees. In addition, “Hôtellerie Suisse”, the Swiss Hotel Association, is affiliated with Les Roches for the educational design and recognition of the Hotel Management Diploma program. Les Roches is also recognized by the Swiss Cantonal State of Valais and the Chartered Institute of Marketing. The Masters of Business Administration is offered through the Universidad Europea de Madrid, in Spain. The UEM holds recognition of the Spanish Minister of Education.

In July 2008, Les Roches' sister school, Les Roches Gruyère-University of Applied Sciences (LRG-UAS), received recognition from the Swiss Confederation to become the first private Swiss university for hospitality management. LRG-UAS students in the Bachelor of Science in Hospitality Management program with a specialization in Food, Beverage and Operations Management take their courses on the Les Roches campus in Bluche.