October 2008

The power of word-of-mouth
28th October 2008

In today’s competitive study abroad industry, it is hard to think that any language school ever survived on recommendations alone. When Dorothy Rippon retired (ESoE Principal from 1980 to 2000), Eastbourne School of English still worked with very few study abroad agents and language travel consultants. Since then, a healthy growth in agent partnerships has given the school the boost it needed to remain one of the top names in the business.

Despite this, it is nice to know that recommendations carry the same value they did twenty years ago. When Japanese student Shuichi Minamiguchi announced that his father was due to visit him at the school, he also revealed that this would not be his first visit. Indeed, Nobuji Minamiguchi spent nine months studying at Eastbourne School of English in 1978 before backpacking around Europe. He then returned home to set up Minamiguchi Bearing Manufacturers in Osaka Japan. He still uses English daily to market the company around the world, and hopes that Shuichi will follow in his footsteps when he returns to Japan in December. Nobuji said “I have great memories of this school, it does not feel like thirty years ago. It hasn’t changed at all!” Father and son are pictured here, during Nobuji's recent visit to the school.