The Chinese-language stream of IFTM’s Tourism Event Management Bachelor’s Degree, established more than a decade ago, remains a highly attractive study option for people in Macao. That is according to 2 fresh graduates from the programme: they praise the Institute’s enthusiastic scholars and staff, noting they are always ready to offer support to students.
“IFTM provides lots more than conventional textbook-based education,” says Ms. Nicole Choi Lei Tong, summing up in one sentence her 4 years of study at the Institute.
The Chinese-language stream of the Tourism Event Management programme is delivered via evening classes. Ms. Choi graduated from it earlier this year.
Having gained experience in the retail industry, Ms. Choi recalls that when she decided subsequently to pursue higher education, her initial plan was to take a degree in hospitality. “However, I saw potential in the meetings and conventions industry,” she says.
One of the reasons for that, the Macao local adds, was the industry’s importance in the development plan for the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area, with meetings and conventions poised to play a role in regional integration.
As a way to learn more about the industry, Ms. Choi did her 6-month curricular internship at a local start-up company involved in ‘we media’ marketing (i.e., using social media channels and other ‘self-media’ digital platforms). “That half-year was interesting: I tried video shooting, interviewing people and all sorts of activity planning,” she says, thanking the firm for the opportunities for professional development it provided her.
Ms. Choi is currently not directly involved in the events industry. She is working as a real estate agent and managing her own restaurant. Nonetheless she says what she learned at IFTM is proving useful professionally. According to her, examples of the benefits include know-how linked to business management and operations.
During her time as a student at IFTM, one of the courses in which Ms. Choi excelled was Service Quality Management, through several group assignments. The course, taught by Instructor Mr. Geraldo Tou, aims to equip students with knowledge on how to manage service quality, including the capability to identify and address service quality gaps.
“Mr. Tou would give us a practical case to analyse, or some questions concerning a topic we had just finished learning about,” she recalls. “We needed to suggest ways of solving the problem, or raise our ideas about that topic, or share related experiences,” Ms. Choi adds. According to her, this approach contributed to improving the course’s overall educational effectiveness.
Theory and practice
IFTM graduate Mr. Lei Kam Kei was another outstanding student in the 2020/2021 intake for the Service Quality Management course. He speaks highly of the course’s teaching approach, integrating theory and practice.
“For an assignment, we probed the service quality of a restaurant,” Mr. Lei says. “Throughout the process, we could understand that there are different assessment criteria and standards for different types of restaurants or companies.”
He says the Service Quality Management course gave him a better understanding of reasons why there might be communication issues in a company between management and frontline staff. “From the theories discussed and the experiences shared by the instructor and classmates, I learned how to figure out reasons for communication problems, and how to address them, which will be of great help in my career.”
Mr. Lei, freshly graduated from the Chinese-language stream of the Tourism Event Management programme, explains why he chose to pursue this degree. “The Macao SAR Government has been promoting the meetings and conventions industry for years, so I wanted to have a chance to understand this field better,” he says.
Mr. Lei did his curricular internship at Macao’s Cultural Affairs Bureau, where he advanced his practical understanding of event management. “At that time, although a lot of events were cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, I still got to experience a lot of work activities,” he says. That included handling all sorts of event-related enquiries, something that eventually gave him detailed knowledge of operational matters.
