First intake, part-time runs 1 October 2026 to 30 April 2027. Dates for the next intake are confirming.
Request the course sheetSeven months, part-time. Seven modules in a deliberate order, an assessed overseas immersion in the middle, and a plan of your own at the end.
The Cairnhill LEAD framework
Most people learn this trade one shift at a time, and it takes years. LEAD is the shortcut: see the whole landscape, run the operation, read what actually drives performance, and make the call. Seven months, and you stop waiting for someone else to decide.
You learn to see the whole picture: what shapes demand for a destination, what makes a place worth visiting, and how cultural and heritage assets are governed and sustained.
You move from following a process to designing one. Service delivery, guest experience, resourcing, and the operational trade-offs that determine whether standards hold under pressure.
You learn to read the numbers and the market together: how positioning, channels, pricing and cost structure interact, and how to tell which decisions improved things and which just looked busy.
You investigate a real problem, form a recommendation grounded in evidence, and present it in a form a decision-maker will act on.
Benefits
A guest goes home carrying nothing but how it felt. That memory is the product, the margin and the reason anyone returns, so every venture here is built from the guest experience outward.
Benefits
Your first guests are people you already know. The business only grows when strangers arrive, through the suppliers, partners, platforms and referrals you build on purpose.
Both are taught here, and both end in something you built.
Request the course sheetThe shape of the seven months
One module a month, in a deliberate order. The middle block is the one that takes you out of the classroom, and it is the part of the calendar that does not move.
Month 1 is online. Months 2, 3 and 4 are on campus, with the assessed overseas immersion anchored to months 3 and 4. Months 5, 6 and 7 return to live online.
Live online, scheduled sessions On campus at 36 Newton Road Assessed overseas immersion, anchored to Modules 3 and 4
How it runs
| Mode of delivery | 60% live online and 40% on campus |
|---|---|
| Language of instruction | English |
| Class size | 1 teacher to 18 students |
| Assessment | Written assessment and practical assessment |
| Graduation requirements | A pass in all seven modules. Minimum 75% attendance for each module. |
| Industrial attachment | Not applicable |
| Qualification awarded | Advanced Diploma in Hospitality, Tourism and Entrepreneurship Management, awarded by Cairnhill Institute Pte. Ltd. |
Industrial attachment is not requiredYou do not need a placement to complete this programme, and none is included. The assessed work is your own: a start-up plan, a service concept, a marketing plan and the numbers underneath them.
The curriculum
Overseas Immersion Learning Journey
Some of the best lessons in this trade are not in any textbook. So in the middle of the programme you travel out of Singapore and see them for yourself: real venues, live service, businesses working at full speed.
You watch a floor under pressure. You see how a place sells its own culture, and who in that community sees the money. Then you come home and write it up as a graded report, assessed here in Singapore.
The immersion runs on scheduled dates. If those dates are difficult, speak to our academic team early. Options include a later scheduled run, or an equivalent supervised alternative against the same learning outcomes, subject to Academic and Examination Board approval. Course completion is not affected.
Destination, dates, and the travel and accommodation arrangement. We will not name a destination before the agreement is executed. Ask admissions what is fixed.
Entry requirements
The programme is written for graduates of hospitality, tourism, business, culinary arts and related fields, and for people moving into the industry from another one. Work experience is not required on either of the two academic routes.
Minimum age 18
Any one of the three
Taught and assessed in English. Meeting the minimum does not by itself secure a place, and admissions will tell you plainly if a later intake would serve you better.
Fees and dates
| Fee breakdown | Total payable, S$ |
|---|---|
| Academic programme fees, seven modules | S$9,520 |
| Programme fee, inclusive of academic administration, student support services, learning resources, industry exposure, enrichment activities and graduation arrangements | S$980 |
| Total course fees payable | S$10,500 |
Total payable, inclusive of GST if any. Application fee: Confirming. Across seven months that works out at S$1,500 a month, shown for comparison only: it is not an instalment plan, and the payment schedule is the one set out in your student contract.
| Intake | Start date | End date |
|---|---|---|
| First intake, part-time | 1 October 2026 | 30 April 2027 |
| Next intake | 1 April 2027 | 31 October 2027 |
Before you pay anythingYou receive the standard PEI-Student Contract and the full fee schedule before any payment is accepted, and fees are collected under the Fee Protection Scheme. The Fee Protection Scheme provider and the registration period are confirming and will be published here once ratified.
Where you land
The explorer
Your diploma is finished, or nearly. You want to be in this trade and you have no work experience to show for it yet. Nothing here assumes you do.
The contributor
Front office, events, kitchen, tours, F&B. You can already run a shift. What stops the next step is the language the decisions are made in.
The builder
A supper club, a tour, a site, a first customer. It works. What you do not know yet is whether it works at three times the size.
Admissions
Five steps, in order. Nothing is paid until a contract exists.
Questions people actually ask
No. Two of the three entry routes are academic and neither asks for a day of work experience: a diploma in a related field, or a polytechnic diploma in any field. Wanting to be in this trade is a good enough reason to be here.
The third route is the reverse case: no diploma, but at least eight years of relevant experience, subject to Academic Board approval. You need one of the three, plus the English requirement.
It is part-time: four sessions a week, four hours a session. Months 1, 5, 6 and 7 run online. Months 2, 3 and 4 run on campus. The online months are built around live trainer-led sessions you are expected to attend, with guided self-paced work and supervised project time around them, so it is not a course you can pick up whenever it suits you. The dated timetable is confirming.
It is assessed and anchored to Modules 3 and 4, and it sits inside the months 2 to 4 contact hours rather than being added on top of them. You write it up as a graded immersion report, which is assessed back in Singapore.
If the scheduled dates do not work for you, speak to our academic team before the intake rather than after it. Two routes are documented: joining a later scheduled run, or, where the Academic and Examination Board approves it, an equivalent supervised alternative that meets the same learning outcomes. Neither affects course completion. Destination, dates and the travel and accommodation arrangement are confirming.
S$10,500 in total: S$9,520 in academic programme fees across the seven modules, plus a S$980 programme fee covering academic administration, student support, learning resources, industry exposure, enrichment activities and graduation. The application fee is confirming. You receive the standard PEI-Student Contract and the full fee schedule before any payment, and fees are collected under the Fee Protection Scheme.
Not automatically. This is not registered as a pathway programme, and it carries no external accreditation, so nobody here can promise you a place anywhere else. Admission to a further qualification is decided by the receiving institution against its own criteria. If a formal articulation agreement is signed, it will appear on this site with the receiving institution named and the supporting documents lodged with CPE.
No. Cairnhill Institute Pte. Ltd. leases its teaching premises at Hotel Royal and delivers, assesses and awards the programme itself. The institute welcomes working relationships across the hospitality industry, and any that bear on the programme would be named here.
Anyone who cannot hold four sessions a week for seven months. That is the one requirement with no route around it.
Industrial attachment is not required here and none is included, so if what you want is a placement into a hotel or an operator, this is not it. Nor is it a culinary or a pure operations qualification: the centre of gravity is commercial. And it will frustrate anyone who wants a credential without producing a plan, because the assessed work is the plan.
Take the course sheet, come and see the room, or put your questions to us. The first cohort begins 1 October 2026. The next intake is 1 April 2027.