Since September, IFT has been running a second campus in Taipa. The added space allows the Institute to venture into new grounds and increase training capacity. Among our many initiatives is the new “Community Education and Development Programme (CEDP)”. This project is composed of a wide range of basic tourism and hospitality related skills and knowledge transfer modules offered free to Macao residents. The aim is to create awareness among the wider community of the importance of tourism development in the city, to enhance sensitivity to visitor needs, to train a ready pool of talent and to direct interested residents to vocational and career opportunities in the rapidly expanding tourism industry. The CEDP gains support from numerous local community and trade associations. Among our partners are the Macao Neighbourhood Association, Women’s Association and the Labour Union. With their community influence, we are hopeful that our training effort would serve different strata of the community effectively and together, we raise the expected standard of service excellence in the city.

Fanny Vong, PhD
President

IFT: What did you do to win your staff’s trust?

CC: Mainly I got to know them, one-by-one, up-close at their work stations. Every day from about 1100 till 1430 I’d pace the hotel floor by floor, observing people at work, chatting with everybody - whether restaurant staff, front office or housekeeping. Initially, people were afraid of me; now I can’t even eat my lunch in the canteen without someone coming over to say hello every five minutes.

IFT: So “management by wandering around” has been a resounding success in getting your staff to serve well?

CC: To a certain extent. It is not enough for me to tell my staffs how I expect them to treat our customers. I often watch them serve, then afterwards correct some of their mistakes, or suggest better ways. Or, I would sometimes serve customers myself, to model the kind of greeting or behaviour that I want my staff to adopt. At the frontline is where the moment of truth of customer service really hits us. This personal coaching while walking on my rounds seems to work very well with rank and file employees.

Having said that, the amount of direct coaching I give to staff is decreasing. The main reason is a drop in staff turnover this past year - including at the department head level. So now, the majority of department heads know how to do this coaching, and I require them to do the job while I play the role of observer.

IFT: Do you have high turnover among your managers as a result of pressure from you?

CC: We have high turnover rate among our top level of management, but low turnover rate among the middle level managers. We have an average employee turnover across all levels of about 20% per year, which is pretty much what most hotels are experiencing in Macao. This is a reflection of market opportunities, changing social values, and salary expectations rather than pressure from me!

IFT: So what are your goals for service excellence, and how do you think you can achieve them?

CC: Morale is quite high, but we need to do much more training and development. At the moment, guest comments average a score of 3 out of 5. Our target for the next year is to get a score of 4 out of 5. Also, we don’t have a computerised customer relations management database; so, to better identify valued customers we have to keep improving our systems and our people, to ride out the economic slowdown.

Contributed by Dr. Soo May Cheng
Tom Wilhelm
Chief Editor

An executive development program jointly organised by the IFT and the Cornell-Nanyang Institute for Hospitality on “Strategic Hotel Pricing” brought together 31 hotel senior managers, professionals and educators on 23 and 24 July for a refreshing look at how pricing was being done in Macao’s hotels. The important message that the instructor, Dr Stowe Shoemaker, brought to the industry leaders was most timely: “In an economic downturn, customers are very important and they have more power, so what we talked about how to make customers come to Macao, spend more money and be happy with what they get.”

In the hotel industry worldwide, it is common to find that “customers want to buy an experience; hotels want to sell rooms.” This perceptual gap makes hotels offer preset room prices that may not be what customers want to pay. The key to competitive pricing, according to Dr. Shoemaker, is to proactively set prices according to customers’ – not the hotels’ – reservation prices.

Dr. Shoemaker is the Donald Hubbs Distinguished Professor at the University of Houston’s Conrad Hilton College of Hotel and Restaurant Management, and a member of the Executive Education faculty at the Cornell University School of Hotel Administration. He was also on the faculty of the University of Nevada, Las Vegas. Having entered academia directly from the industry, Dr. Shoemaker is able to bring to the EDP his many years of experience in the F&B sector and a family hotel in Vermont, USA, as well as his consulting and research collaboration with many top global hotel chains including Marriot and Intercontinental.

Participants in the IFT-CNI program left with new insights and a new set of tools on how to make customer relationship management (CRM) work better for the revenue department. Being able to identify who the customers are, what they expect, and how much they are willing to pay is crucial to a hotels’ ability to offer the right choices of products to meet their customers’ needs.

Mr Luis Lobo, General Manager of StarWorld Hotel, felt that the programme gave him new ideas and techniques that he can take back to brainstorm with his team, in preparation for the huge Galaxy Megaworld Resort project that his company is developing on COTAI.

Another participant, IFT lecturer Miguel Gassmann de Oliveira, liked the programme’s focus on creating customer loyalty. He said, “Today’s hotel market is very competitive, with many hotels offering a similar product at a similar price. Therefore, the hotels need to find a system or a method in which they can differentiate themselves from each other so as to create loyalty.”

Tourism College

於7月23至24日，本學院與康奈爾 – 南洋款待管理學院合辦「酒店策略性定價」高級管理課程。由美國休斯頓大學康睿希爾頓酒店及餐飲管理學院榮譽教授Stowe Shoemaker 博士主講。

After the Marketing Plan: How to Create a Service Plan by Dr. Mark Rosenbaum, Fulbright Scholar and Assistant Professor of Marketing at Northern Illinois University, on 14 August

Dr. Fanny Vong presents souvenir to Dr. Mark Rosenbaum

This lecture looked at why many companies fail even though their marketing plans appear sound. The presentation addressed common mistakes in traditional marketing planning and illustrated how service planning could help co-creation values between employees and customers. Dr. Rosenbaum discussed an eight-step service planning framework, which strategises a series of activities once the customer enters the exchange process. The framework also calls for better integration among various business functions that support the service encounter.

Tourism College

15th Annual APTA Conference

Tourism College

以上為6-8月教授及講師於多個學術會議上發表的論文。

• recognise excellence in academic achievement among students;
• be a motivating mechanism for students to excel; and
• impart in students a sense of pride and connection to IFT in the long run.

In response to an invitation from the AnYang Tourism Board, Henan Province, IFT offered a tourism management programme to a group of 23 senior government officials and high ranking industry professionals from AnYang City and nearby regions. The programme took place at IFT from 31 August to 3 September and ended with a certificate presentation ceremony held on the last day of the programme.

AnYang City, home to pre-historic cavemen during the Stone Age, is an ancient city with a history of over 3000 years and is one of the eight ancient capitals of China. It is one of the key birthplaces of Chinese ancient culture. In 2006, the archaeological site of Yin Xu was inscribed to the list of UNESCO World Heritage Sites. Yin Xu is a testimony to the golden age of early Chinese culture; since its inscription, the number of international tourists visiting Anyang has increased dramatically - especially amongst visitors from Korea and Japan. AnYang is also famed for its beautiful natural scenery. The city itself administers four districts, one country-level city and four counties.

With the coordination of Mr. Zhang Jianguo, Director of the AnYang Tourism Board, the delegates of this study trip included Directors and Deputy Directors of the Tourism Board of AnYang City and its administered regions, and a number of leading travel operators.

Mr. Zhang Jianguo told local media he was pleased to bring his delegates to Macao for this study trip. He said Macao tourism has developed rapidly in these last few years and that he expects to learn from the successful experiences of Macao and apply this insight towards promotion of the AnYang tourism industry.

The programme covered a wide range of topics, including the origin of UNESCO World Heritage, Tourism Economics in the MICE Industry, Destination Management, Tourist Management, and Tourism Impacts from the Economics perspective, while also sharing successful cases in the Asia-Pacific region. The participants visited the Grand Lisboa and Wynn hotels, where they had a chance to learn about the back-of-house operations of these large hotel complexes. These visits also allowed the AnYang representatives to exchange ideas with local industry professionals.

In the past, IFT has offered similar tourism management programmes to government officials and industry professionals of ShanXi, HeBei and Inner Mongolia. Through these professional programmes, government officials and industry professionals from these mainland provinces were able to learn from the good and bad experiences that Macao has seen during its rapid tourism development. Due to the role of Macao as a platform of economic cooperation between China and Portuguese-speaking countries, IFT also organised a series of tourism management programmes for various Portuguese speaking countries.

PACES

旅遊學院於8月31至9月3日為安陽市旅遊局開辦旅遊管理培訓課程。一行23人的學習團，由河南省安陽市旅遊局局長張建國先生率領，當中包括安陽市旅遊局及其周邊地區的政府高級行政人員。課程於最後一天舉行證書頒發儀式。

旅遊學院一年級學生程明明與二年級學生潘俊銘分別於第三屆全澳大專院校英文及葡文寫作比賽及第五屆全澳大專院校英語口號創作比賽獲得亞軍及優異獎。

In this, my second cultural exchange trip to Beijing, I assisted the Department of Painting and Calligraphy in the Palace Museum, also known as the Forbidden City, (on the World Heritage List). I deepened my knowledge of book of rubbings. I admire those Chinese experts who laboured long and hard in this endeavour. Within the few days I spent in Beijing, and through the visit to a number of historical buildings and museums, I had a chance to appreciate various brilliant works of art including paintings, ceramics and other exhibits. All of them allowed me to understand what luxurious life the ancient Chinese noblemen had.

Despite the short stay in Beijing, I had lots of deep experiences, ranging from work to daily life.

Vincent, Leong Kin I
Heritage Management Year 3 Student

Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management (IITTM)-IFT Joint Summer International Exchange Programme in Gwalior, India, 22-28 June 2009.

For the first time in 11 years, the IFT Summer Programme was held outside Macao. This has been a joint programme between our APETIT (Network of Asia-Pacific Education and Training Institute in Tourism) member, the Indian Institute of Tourism and Travel Management, and IFT. Fourteen students from Macao and overseas tertiary education institutions participated in the programme. They all had a wonderful experience.

To all of us, India is full of mysterious and fascinating things. This land evokes thoughts of its mysterious cultures and religions, ancient legends and the unique way of life. Also, India’s heritage sites, and its reputation of being “the cradle of Yoga” added to our interest in this exchange programme. India does not just educate about its culture tourism, but also provides a chance to get to know the world in a wider way. - Carol Zhang Xiaoyue

In class, lecturers and a guest speaker discussed culture, religion and the trends in Indian tourism with us. On the last day, we gave small presentations, both in groups and individually. Moreover, we met some local students who were participating in another exchange programme there. We talked, introduced tourism places of our own countries to each other, and even had a competition on wearing Indian Sari, which is the traditional female dress in India. - Stella Want Sijing

It’s nice to go to India. I would like to visit India again in the future. All the people at IITTM treated us very well, and we became friends. I wish them all the best. - Tracy Tam Hoi Tong

This summer programme was full of fun. At the same time, I got a better understanding of culture tourism. - Tracy Chan Weng Kei

It’s very hot in India, but I was happy to be there. - Maggie Ieong Pek I

All of us strongly encourage other students who want to experience and learn different things to join similar programmes in the coming year.

*”Namaste” means “hello”
Participants of the IITTM-IFT joint Summer International Exchange Programme

2009年6月份於印度瓜廖爾舉行的的國際交流計劃為印度旅游管理研究所與旅遊學院聯合籌辦的一項夏季交流活動，參加者當中包括了旅遊學院的學生。在酷熱的天氣下，學生們深入探索當地的文化寶庫。在瓜廖爾期間，他們一方面認識印度文化旅遊，一方面感受與其他參加這次交流計劃的學員們討論和分享的樂趣。

During the first half of 2009, I was an exchange student at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University. Over the first five months I not only had a great study experience, but I developed into a confident, professional, independent person and have made life-long friends.

Before embarking on my exchange, some of my friends (even a few of my professors) seemed a little surprised that I chose Hong Kong as my exchange destination, as it is so close to Macao. The regions are close, yet I could feel great differences between Macao and Hong Kong the moment I stepped off the ferry in Kowloon. The fast pace of life is the first and most impressive aspect that I noticed in this city, and studying in this up-tempo atmosphere is quite exciting.

I have enjoyed a lot of fun at the University and I have even formed some new opinions and fresh ideas for my direction of study, my career and my life’s planning. Although it is not a distant environment, it truly provide a high quality, enriching, self-satisfying learning experience; I recommend exchange students in the future to consider Hong Kong Polytechnic University as one of their top choices.

Zora Wong Zijie
Tourism Business Management Year 3 Student

I just finished my exchange study at University of South Carolina (USC) and conclude that Americans are always friendly and willing to help you.

It was my first time to have classes with American students, first time to take road trips with all European schoolmates, first time to manage a real wedding for an American couple, first time to teach American classmates Portuguese while they taught me English, and first time to serve as a voluntary receptionist for the Hospitality Day Of South Carolina festival.

I learned how to be independent and how to get along with people from different countries with diversified cultures. I sincerely thank IFT and USC for providing me with such a precious experience. I hope more IFT students can benefit from this marvellous opportunity, just like I did. World does not seem that big when you take the first step to approach it!

Yuki, Pun Ut Pan
Tourism Event Management Year 2 Student

In order to attain wisdom, it is not enough merely to read books; you must be well travelled as well. Together with students from Hong Kong and Macao, I visited many amazing tourist attractions in Beijing such as Hutongs, old Beijing buildings, and modern commercial districts. Through the locals in Beijing, I saw a lot and understood a great deal. With every experience, I could understand the people and the culture of Beijing from the past till the present. Although I had a brief time to work and live there, Beijing is still memorable.

Shirley, Chio Sut Cheng
Heritage Management Year 3 Student

IFT has welcomed three exchange interns from University of Nevada Las Vegas (Singapore campus) and Glion Institute of Higher Education, Switzerland since June 2009.

Throughout their six months at IFT, the exchange interns will receive on and off campus training.

Registry

學院上半年接納了上述院校之3名交換生作為期約6個月之實習。