Institute News Main Headline

Tourism officials from Portuguese-speaking countries praise IFT workshops

中文摘要 / Summary in Chinese

IFT is providing on behalf of the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO) – for a second consecutive year – training workshops for civil servants from tourism-related bodies of Portuguese-speaking countries. Participants praise the quality of the courses and say the knowledge acquired will be useful for them to help develop tourism in their home countries.

“We came to Macao to gain additional knowledge on tourism development,” says workshop participant Mr. Bosseke Mansony. He is Provincial Director for Commerce, Hospitality and Tourism in Angola’s Uíge Province.

“Attending these workshops is very important for us because human capital development can push forward economic growth,” he adds.

Mr. Mansony was among the second intake of participants for the 2017 edition of what is an annual training programme hosted by MGTO.

In 2017, a total of 3 intakes of officials from 5 countries – including Angola, Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and East Timor – will receive training in Macao under the scheme. Each training session organised by MGTO – with about 10 participants – is for a 2-week period, which includes 2 days of workshops at IFT. Training for the last batch of participants is scheduled to take place in September.

The IFT workshops for the second intake were held in July. One of the workshops was on tourism destination marketing. The other focused on planning and development for sustainable tourism.

“Both workshops were very interesting. If I were invited to attend these same workshops again, I would say yes in a blink of an eye,” states Angola’s Mr. Mansony.

Fellow programme participant Mr. Paulo Fernandes agrees. “Our visit to Macao was very rewarding,” says Mr. Fernandes. He heads the tourism services in Cape Verde’s central region: it includes the Sal and Boa Vista islands, the country’s main tourism hotspots.

Mr. Fernandes says both days of IFT workshops for his intake group were very interesting. He says a highlight was discussion on how to boost tourism growth while ensuring sustainability.

“Cape Verde’s tourism sector is at an early stage of development. Coming to Macao – a place that is already well advanced in this sector – gave us fresh perspectives on the industry,” he says. “We tried to learn some of the best practices in place in Macao and understand how could we take these back to our countries.”

The workshops were offered by IFT’s Global Centre for Tourism Education and Training. The Centre – officially established in 2016 – is the latest step for positioning the Institute as an international training and education hub. That includes strengthening cooperation with Portuguese-speaking countries. The strategy aligns with the Macao SAR Government’s efforts to promote the city as a cooperation platform between the People’s Republic of China and Portuguese-speaking countries.

“As we attempt to identify the training needs [of tourism officials from Portuguese-speaking countries], we are finding that the workshops on tourism planning and development are quite useful and valuable” for them, says IFT Visiting Professor Dr. John Ap, Director of the Global Centre for Tourism Education and Training.

He adds: “We are also coming up with new ideas and topics. For the September intake, we will be doing something on heritage management and tourism.”

President’s Corner

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