SALT LAKE CITY, Utah—Yipy announced that the University of Nevada, Las Vegas (UNLV) William F. Harrah College of Hospitality has integrated Yipy’s platform into both its undergraduate and graduate curricula.
For decades, hospitality programs have emphasized finance, leadership theory, marketing, and guest experience strategy. Yet the operational infrastructure that determines whether service is delivered consistently — structured standards documentation, auditing frameworks, measurable accountability systems — has largely been learned informally on the job. By integrating Yipy into its curriculum, UNLV is formalizing that discipline.
Platform Details
Undergraduate students now use the platform to understand the architecture of hospitality standards and conduct real-world audits of live food and beverage operations. They evaluate service delivery against defined criteria, capture evidence, and analyze how standards influence labor efficiency, cost control, and guest satisfaction. Graduate students extend this work further, identifying weaknesses in poorly written standards, diagnosing systemic execution gaps, and building comprehensive documentation frameworks across departments, including rooms, front desk, and F&B.
The result is a shift in the workforce pipeline. Graduates entering the industry will not only understand strategy and service philosophy, but also key elements of the business — how standards are structured, enforced, measured, and improved.
The milestone also carries particular significance for Yipy’s Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer, Adam Tuttle, a graduate of UNLV’s hospitality program. After building his career in hotel operations, Tuttle founded Yipy to modernize how hotels define, document, audit, and enforce service standards.
Statements from Leadership
Adam Tuttle, Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Yipy, said, “Standards are the actual work of hospitality. They determine what gets delivered day in and day out. For years, much of that discipline has been learned informally in the field. Seeing UNLV embed standards management into its curriculum reinforces that operational execution is foundational to leadership in this industry.”
Bobbie Barnes, associate professor in Residence, UNLV, said, “We’re all about applied learning. Without application, learning doesn’t occur. Yipy allows students to use technology they’re actually going to be using in industry. So many of our students have been line-level, they’ve been the recipient of a service shop. Now they’re getting the chance to see it from behind the scenes, with explicit standards that are set. It allows them to see that other side of it, which is powerful.”
Dr. Finley Cotrone, associate professor in residence, UNLV, said, “How do you teach a service eye better than to have standards that you are evaluated by? There’s no better way than having students use the app versus a sheet of paper, like the old school way. They’re taking pictures; it’s more applied to what they’re going to do in industry. It’s been really powerful for them to use the technology — and it’s a great example of how we actually create change in a work environment by building people’s confidence through transparency of expectations.”
