Tourism Education and Training in China - Essay Example

Tourism Education and Training in China (Role of Government and the Private Sector) With the continuing 'open-door' economic policy, and the political reforms, China has seen remarkable growth in its economy and the living standards of its people. The flourishing tourism and hotel industry is one such example. According to the Chinese National Tourism Administration (CNTA) Beijing played host to 436,000 overseas tourists in the first two months of the year 2007 only. Earlier there used to be mainly the tourists from China and the surrounding areas, as the figures from the for the period 1995-2000 show. In 1995 40.5 million tourists visited China, out of these some 87 per cent were compatriot Chinese from Hong Kong, Macau, Taiwan and overseas Chinese. This figure continued to rise in subsequent years, as depicted by the figure below1. The total number of inbound tourists and growth rates between 1996-2000 were respectively as follows: 51.1275 million in 1996, with an increase of 10.2% over the previous year; 57.5879 million in 1997, a rise of 12.6%; 63.4784 million in 1998, up 10.2%; 72.7956 million in 1999, up 14.7%; and 83.4439 million in 2000, increasing by 14.7%. But the real impetus came after China joined the WTO regime in December 2001. Thereafter European tourists also headed towards China in big numbers, as they wanted to unravel the mystery called China, the land of billions. Business community from Europe and America now wanted to explore the market potential of China. This further helped the Chinese tourism industry, which too started realizing the need for bringing in more professionalism in the industry. Tourism education forms a basic component for managing the industry more professionally. Tourism education began in a big way in 1978 when Nanjing Tourism School was first established and Shanghai Tourism College the year after. China National Tourism Administration (CNTA) set up tourism departments in seven colleges and universities in the 1980s to meet the needs of developing managerial personnel for the tourism industry. To prosper, tourism requires participation of the industry, the government and the public in good measure. Meanwhile, many other colleges and schools began to set up their own tourism education departments or specialties (Zhang et al, 2001). In addition, some organizations, like international hotel chains, tourism companies also started taking interest in setting up their own training system, providing on the job training, various management trainings etc. From Chinese government statistics, in 1986, there were only 27 universities and colleges offering hospitality and tourism programs with 4,800 students. The number increased to 69 universities with 8,551 students in 1989. Subsequently in 1998 there were 936 tourism schools and colleges having 29,566 students (Huyton et al, 1999). Before the onset of the liberalization era Chinese government was known for keeping a firm control on almost all service sectors. But gradually the public sector units with the government are being handed over to private management and government has started concentrating on governance. A report by United Nations' World Tourism Organisation, at the end of the year 2004, China stands as the fourth largest international tourist destination in the world with 109m inbound visitors in 2004.that brought in a foreign exchange of around US$25.7bn. The Global Competitive Report 2006-2007, brought out by the World Economic Forum, places China at 71st place in terms of Travel and Tourism Competitive. The report states that2, "Although China is ranked 3rd in terms of World Heritage sites, and 11th in terms of price competitiveness, it has a policy environment that is not at all conducive for T&T development (ranked a low 97th), with property rights that are not sufficiently protected, strong foreign ownership restrictions and stringent visa requirements." That effectively means that there's still a lot for China to encourage tourism in the country. Providing, tourism education to the students, is one of the steps towards preparing China for competing in the global arena. No doubt for providing education and training in the hospitality and tourism sector in China, government has a significant role to play, as it formulates the relevant policies and guidelines. Lew et al. (2003) point out that over the past two decades or so, , tourism development in China has undergone three major changes: Politics only (from the early establishment of travel services shortly after 1949, until the eve of present reform in 1978); Politics plus economics (from 1978 to 1985); Economics over politics (from 1986 to present). During the two decades, in order to stimulate tourism and hospitality development, Chinese government has established some bureau and national organization to formulate the tertiary industry. From 1949 to the mid-1960s, there was no single state organ responsible for tourism due to its small scale. The Bureau for Travel and Tourism (BTT) was set up in the mid-1970s under the jurisdiction of the Foreign Ministry. With the rapid growth of tourism in the late 1970s, and a deeper understanding of its significance in the course of reform, the National Tourism Administration of the People's Republic of China (CNTA) was set up in 1981 to replace the BTT. CNTA became China's principal national tourism organization (NTO) under the direct jurisdiction of the country's State Council. Therefore, policies related to national education and training in tourism and hospitality comes out of CNTA. To provide training and education in China, there are three main hierarchical approaches: Academic study: This includes tourism and hospitalities education in universities, colleges, middle schools, technology school etc. Vocational study: i.e. when the student is provided supervised work experience Skills training; Skill are inculcated through continuous professional development, on the job training, life-long learning, distance learning, educational seminars, foreign language courses. According to the Chinese government statistics (China National Tourism Administration, 2000), there were 209 higher learning institutes and colleges with tourism departments or schools in mainland China at the end of 1999, with an enrolment of 32,737 students (not including Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan). But, among the 209 tourism academic institutions, none of them offers PhD-level education in hotel and tourism disciplines (Zhang etc. 2001). One reason for this is that, the education system in China has been kept under firm control by the Chinese government, on the lines of planned-economic mode. Moreover, the government considers the studies linked to natural sciences more important than social sciences. Therefore, the subject of Tourism management is not yet getting due recognition. In addition, tourism management teachers also do not possess the requisite practical hands on experience and an active support from the industry. Huyton and Ingold (1999) state that, apart from the technical colleges and universities there are the three forms of vocationally specific training schools: the secondary technical school, the skilled worker training school and the vocational middle school. The weakest link in tourism education and training in China is on the job training and sustenance of a life-long learning for continuous professional development. In the hotel industry in China, particularly in state owned hotels, employees can be found working in the same department and position for many years without undergoing any type of 'on the job' training. There are some distance learning courses which offer education in tourism, but the lack of adequate training somehow leaves room for more. To support the vocational training courses at secondary school level, the Central Committee of the Chinese Communist Party made a resolution on 'Institutional Reform of Education' (Huyton and Lngold 1999) on 27th May 1985. The resolution underlined the need felt by the Chinese government to prepare professionals or experts for hospitality and tourism sector. China Tourism Management Institute is a good example of a institute providing higher learning institution for tourism education. Approved by the Chinese Ministry of Education and invested by both China National Tourism Administration and the United Nations Development Program, China Tourism Management Institute was established in 1987. It is now the largest higher learning institution in China specializing in tourism education. It was funded and technically supported in its initial stage by UNDP (United Nations Development Program) as the first funded project in China' tourism industry. (http://www.tourismtj.com.cn). China Tourism Management Institute provides various courses and degrees to partially fulfill the demands of tourism and hospitality market in the country.. The programmes like a two-year full-time diploma course conducted in English, which includes courses such as accounting, retail selling, introduction to tourism, front office management etc. The institute has a strategic tie-up with Blue Mountains Hotel School in Australia. Therefore, students completing the two-year program can further pursue their studies in international schools to get a bachelor degree. During the two-year study, the institute also helps students in having some work experience in the industry, which in the long run helps in their placement. The government is supposed to frame policies, provides financing investment, build fundamental infrastructure for the education and training in hospitality and tourism sector. The private sector too is required to provide a helping hand for the industry to prosper and bring in more professionalism. In China, at this point, government stands the essential function. On the other hand, private sector in education and training in hospitality and tourism also play an inevitable role. Statistics reveal that in China, a large number of employees who currently work for tourism and hospitality sector are not qualified graduates from higher tourism educational system. Only a small minority of them hold diploma or degrees related to travel and tourism. ( sources ) . Gradually though some bigger tourism and hospitality organizations have taken different types of training initiatives for their employees, to enhance their utility in the organization and help in career development. In one such initiative recently3 Marriott International announced an educational partnership with the Shanghai Institute of Tourism to develop hotel talent in China. This would help in developing hospitality students by incorporating a range of both theoretical and practical teaching methods into their every day curriculum. An important element of human resources management is to develop congruence between individual goals and organizational objectives while striving for realizing higher standards of performance, satisfaction and quality of working life. Therefore, in order to retain good employees, training and development become part of the retention strategy. Pre-opening, induction training, training at department level, various management training and links to external agencies for training are some other methods of grooming professionalism (Goldsmith etc. 1997). Hilton, a leading name in five-star hotel industry having its presence in Hong Kong, Beijing, Shanghai, Dalian and Nanjing is also doing its bit for training its manpower. For employees, Hilton provides a wide range of benefits, education, training and promotion opportunities. Hilton spirits, 'Only those who feel valued can truly add value', encourage employees 'enjoyment' in their working. To get out the optimum from a satisfied and participative individual is considered to be the ultimate objective of HRM policies. For on the job training, Hilton group has built Hilton University which aspires 'to enable those with ambitions to get ahead'. The learning styles can be various. Information that supports learning and development is available to colleagues either on the internet in their homes or via the internet within the hotels. (http://www.hilton.co.uk/corporateinfo/924_HiltonUniversity.jsp) Like Hilton, many other international hotel in China have started placing great emphasis on the recruitment of staff, on the job training, internal promotion etc. Following the trends, some nationally owned hotels have also adopted an 'open door' policy and using appropriate human resource management methods to manage their business and properties. Results of such initiatives in cities like Beijing, Shanghai and have been quite impressive. Processes of tourism and hospitality development in China are strongly influenced by the Chinese government' open door policy and subsequent economic reforms since 1978. The following table covered some aspects of the tourism and hospitality policy implementation and result achieved subsequently. Major tourism policies and regulations implemented in China since 1978 Year Policy and regulation Target areas Status of implementation 1979 Introduction of foreign investment Initially in the hotel but expanding to the travel agency sector Successfully implemented 1984 'Five together' Investment in tourism industry Successfully implemented 1985 'provisional regulation on the administration of travel agencies' Travel agencies Not well implemented Replaced by the regulation on the administration of travel agencies in 1996 1988 'regulations on the star standard and star rating of tourist hotels of People's Republic of China' Hotels Successfully implemented 1992 Development of state-level resorts Tourist attractions Successfully implemented 1993 'provisional methods on the administration of hotel management companies' Hotels Successfully implemented 1995 'provisional regulations on the administration of quality service guarantee funds of travel agencies' and 'Quality supervision bureau' Travel agencies-service quality and customer satisfaction Successfully implemented but with resistance at the initial stage 1996 Regulation on the administration of tour guides Regulation on the administration of travel agencies Travel agencies-qualification and licensing of tour guides Implemented Note: The 'Five together' is a policy decision in tourism which allows tourism administration, individual government agencies, local governments, collectives together with individual persons to invest in the tourism industry. Source: Zhang etc. (2002) pp.39. Under the current policies and the educational system, there are many obvious problems that education and training system in Tourism and Hospitability sector has to face in China. As Lam and Xiao (2000) state, the main problems can be summarized as follows: Firstly, the concept of 'service': As the foreign operators' expect and the international visitors comprehend the general international service ethics rarely exists among Chinese employees in the tourism and hospitality industry. There are a number of reasons for this. Qiu and Lam (2004) say people think that careers in hotels are short and that the jobs require no skills but demand intense physical stamina. Furthermore, the hotel industry is about serving people. Culturally, serving people is considered a kind of 'losing face', so many parents are not willing to encourage their children to choose studying and working in hospitality and tourism even if the payments are attractive. But things slightly changed with the increase in investments of international hotel chain. Secondly, industry managers are not satisfied the quality of graduates in the business. These industry managers think that, students who graduate from tourism and hospitality higher education institutions and vocational training schools are not qualified enough and can not meet the demand of the expanding industry. These graduates are coming out as 'raw material' rather than a 'complete products'. It is expected that the graduates should not only have management knowledge, but operational skills as well. These graduates are also expected to be faithful and loyal to the company as well. Thirdly, there's the problem of proper placement for the graduates coming out of the hospitality institutes. Students often complain that, after two or four years of study, they can not find the ideal job they were longing for. The wages offered at the beginning of their service careers too happen to be much lower as compared to some other industries, like the IT field, Computer Company, banking, finance company and other counterparts. Those entering the hospitality sector often starts thinking of quitting their jobs or switching over to some other industry after some time. Fourthly, the shortage of current tourism and hospitality education system in China compounds the problems of the industry. Observing the performance of the new recruits and the reflections from tourism and hospitality companies, it is clear that the Chinese educational system, particularly in this sector needs reform. Because of lack investment and funding, some schools do not even have a fundamental structure, they just can provide students to study in a classroom; textbooks are out-of-date, some are translated versions from eastern countries, which makes the context unsuitable for Chinese people. Schools and parents do not encourage students taking 'gap year' to practice during their study. Another issue is about the availability of qualified teachers, like Zhang and Wu (2004) mentioned, qualified teachers are rare and most of the teachers do not have a practical exposure themselves. That is mainly why they deliver their lectures by reading from text books. There are very few case studies used in the classroom and faculty couldn't do much to improve the academic and practical skills. For the country, it is actually a kind of waste of human resource. Fifthly, expatriate managers find it hard to work efficiently because of culture shock. Kaye and Taylor (1997) identified that, cultural differences that can affect the communication process by influencing a person's perception. The language barrier is the most obvious factor encountered by Western expatriates. Others like foods, ways to eat, the concept of personal space, etc., often result in stress because they may seem neither understandable nor ethically correct. Fortunately, Chinese government had a series of reforms implemented in 1999. For example, The National Education Ministry simplified the structural contexts by reducing the original catalogue of 543 secondary disciplines to 249. In addition, the higher occupational education program in tourism was implemented in September 1999 (Lam and Xiao, 2000). Based on this discussion, it is possible to draw some general conclusions that take the profile of education and training in hospitality and tourism in China and how government and other private sectors can implement some of the schemes to influence education and training in tourism and hospitality industry and how efficiency of such schemes can be enhanced. First, the background in education and training in hospitality and tourism in China is been established in the 'special period' when China opened her doors to western countries just about two decades back. That is to say, the formulation of Chinese education and training is yet to become completely suitable for the demands of the industry. With the gradual transition of Chinese economy from a planned economy to a market driven economy, adequate changes are expected in the tourism industry as well. According to a UNWTO report4, International tourism represents more than a third of all trade in services and it is the services sector which will provide the economic growth and jobs in the decades ahead. Second, as the case of China shows, the lack of shortage of well qualified people appears to be one of the main obstacles towards implementation of continuous developing education and training system in the hospitality and tourism sector. Third, it has been observed that in hospitality and tourism sector, many new graduates are more inclined to work in international companies instead of regional properties. This makes the figures of employees quite high with lower levels of commitment to their employers. This, in fact, points towards a serious flaw in the human resource management aspect in these local companies. Therefore, with the process of reforms in the modern educational system, the improvement of human resource management in the regional hotels will definitely improve, which will provide some stability to the local hospitality industry. Finally, the efficiency and effectiveness of training and education approaches to tourism and hospitality largely depends on the pattern of decisions made by the government, private sector, large organizations and the whole society. For instance, in the case of Hilton in China, to some extent, those private sectors do influence Chinese local properties. Since 1978, Chinese government has been coming out with more and more policies to encourage foreign companies to invest or take up joint ventures in China. These steps also, encourage local hospitality and tourism. Having studied the case of education and training in tourism and hospitality sector in China we find that without an active support of Chinese government, it will not be possible for the tourism industry to bring about a perceptible change. At the same time, without recognizing the influence of different private sector players, the tourism industry cannot attain the level of maturity expected from it, for competing with the international players. References Goldsmith, A. L., Nickson, D. P., Sloan, D. and Wood, R.C. (1997), Human Resource Management for Hospitality Services, published by International Thomson Business Press Huyton, J.R. and Lngold, A. (1999) 'A commentary by Chinese hotel workers on the value of vocational education', Journal of European Industrial Training, 23(1), pp.16-24. Kaye, M. and Taylor, W. G.K., (1997), 'Expatriate culture shock in China: a study in the Beijing hotel industry', Journal of Managerial Psychology, 12 (8), pp.496-510. Lam, T. and Xiao, H.G. (2000), 'Challenges and constraints of hospitality and tourism education in China.' International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 12(5), pp. 291-295. Lew, A.A., Yu, L., Ap, J. and Zhang, G.R. (2003). Tourism in China. New York: The Haworth Hospitality Press. NTA (1995), National Tourism Administration of China - Annual Yearbook of Statistics, China National Tourism Administration, Beijing. Qiu, H.Z. and Lam, T. (2004), 'Human resources issues in the development of tourism in China: evidence from Heilongjinag Province.' International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 16(1), pp. 45-51. Zhang, H.Q., Lam, T. and Bauer, T. (2001) 'Analysis of training and education needs of mainland Chinese tourism academics in the twenty-first century.' International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 13(6), pp.274-279. Zhang, H.Q. and Wu, E. (2004), 'Human resources issues facing the hotel and travel industry in China', International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 16(7), pp. 424-428. Zhang, Q.H., Chong, K. and Jenkins, C.L. (2002) 'Tourism policy implementation in mainland China: an enterprise perspective' International Journal of Contemporary Hospitality Management, 14(1), pp.38-42. Tourism in China, accessed at http://www.tourismtj.com.cn on 18 March 22 2007. Hilton, development, accessed at http://www.hilton.co.uk/corporateinfo/924_HiltonUniversity.jsp on 21 March 2007. References: 1. http://old.cnta.gov.cn/lyen/gl/1_view.aspid=6790 2. http://old.cnta.gov.cn/lyen/2fact/inbound%20tourism-1.htm 3. Shaun Rein (2007) Investing in China's Tourism Industry, Posted on Mar 7th, 2007, http://china.seekingalpha.com/article/28889 4. International Tourists, http://www.world-tourism.org/facts/eng/pdf/barometer/barometer_february_07_e.pdf 5. http://www.world-tourism.org/newsroom/magazine/archives/wto_news_01_07.pdf 6. http://www.world-tourism.org/ 7. World Economic Forum (WEF). Travel and Tourism Competitiveness: Highlights, http://www.weforum.org/en/initiatives/gcp/TravelandTourismReport/Highlights/index.htm 8. EIU (2007), China: Country Profile 2007, The Economist Intelligence Unit, London. 9. http://ertr.tamu.edu/conferenceabstracts.cfmabstractid=1879 10. China Tourism Management Institute, http://www.ctmi.com.cn/ctmi_en/institute.htm 11. Chinese Tourism Department Received Over 10,000 Complaints In 2006, http://www.chinacsr.com/2007/02/01/1024-chinese-tourism-department-received-over-10000-complaints-in-2006/ 12. Educational Partnership Prepares Students For China's Tourism Sector, http://www.chinacsr.com/2007/03/21/1157-educational-partnership-prepares-students-for-chinas-tourism-sector/#more-1157 13. UNWTO Launches Human Rights Initiative For Tourism Industry, http://www.chinacsr.com/2006/03/16/371-unwto-launches-human-rights-initiative-for-tourism-industry/ 14. China Statistics, 2004 Statistical Recap, http://www.chinaguide.org/guide/china-statistics/ 15. Read More