UK students partner with Elwood Hotel for AI-enhanced experiential learning in hospitality

LEXINGTON, Ky. (Feb. 2, 2026) — Students in a hospitality and tourism marketing class at the University of Kentucky practiced creativity and connection through a partnership with the Elwood Hotel.

The Hospitality Management and Tourism (HMT) class is an undergraduate course that emphasizes experiential learning through real-world industry partnerships. In Fall 2025, students designed a targeted social media campaign aimed at enhancing brand awareness and engagement for Elwood.

“Not often, as college students, do we get the opportunity to be creative, and this was a fun way to bring in that artistic vision and be creative and think outside the box,” said Emilia Grossi, an HMT senior. “No matter what you do in hospitality, or really anything, knowing how to talk to people and connect with people is important. That was a really fun and useful part of the experience.”

The HMT program is part of the Department of Retailing and Tourism Management (RTM) in the Martin-Gatton College of Agriculture, Food and Environment. Yeonjung Kang, Ph.D., assistant professor, teaches the course. Kang is also part of the Center for the Enhancement of Learning and Teaching (CELT) articial intelligence (AI)-focused 2024-25 Teaching Innovation Institute, which supports faculty in integrating AI into teaching and learning.

To learn more about their industry partner, students toured the hotel and heard a presentation from Elwood personnel. Then each group analyzed the brand, developed a marketing strategy, including a slogan, and produced a social media video.

In the course, students learned the importance of AI prompt engineering — how to ask strategic questions to generate meaningful insights — and how to apply AI outputs to support data-informed marketing decisions. Kang emphasized that building AI literacy alongside human critical thinking is essential in the hospitality industry and aligns with UK’s initiative to coordinate and advance AI use.

Students put 100 reviews of Elwood into a spreadsheet then used AI tools to identify key themes in customer feedback, including what visitors valued most about their stay. Those insights informed each group’s final product.

“I’ve learned how to use my resources in a good way,” Grossi said.

Based on the analysis, Grossi’s group chose the slogan “Stay Connected.” The students created a storyboard, recorded and edited a video in the style of filmmaker Wes Anderson.

“This project is very intentionally designed to provide students a really hands-on, real-world marketing project working with a real industry partner,” Kang said. “Hospitality is about practical application of knowledge, so practicing in class is definitely helpful.”

David Bader, Elwood owner, said working with the HMT students was a fantastic experience.

“From our observations of two classes, as well as our engaging of several students as team members, we think the school is doing a very good job in preparing students for hospitality, which is a frame of mind as much as a set of skills,” Bader said.

The partnership is valuable for the students, the university and Elwood.

“We have benefited by exposure to both creative talent (in the classroom setting) and young people who have intrinsic hospitality in their blood,” Bader said. “We look forward to a long relationship with the program.”

Grossi, who said her “hope and dream” is to be a full-time event planner, said she’ll carry the lessons from this project and course into her career.

“What I’ll use in my future career is paying attention to finer details, using my resources and finding a way to incorporate the way modern technology is moving, and the people skills of interacting with a client, asking them what they want and delivering on what that is,” Grossi said.

Visit the UK Hospitality Management and Tourism program to learn more.