Industry partners attend “Islamic Culture in Tourism Seminar”
Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) regularly provides training opportunities targeting related professions in travel trade and other related sectors to enhance service quality and work efficiency across the tourism industry. Such efforts are made to cater for visitors from a growing diversity of market segments and nationalities, foster quality tourism and thus build a positive destination image. A total of 75 workshops, courses and seminars were held by the Tourist Office this year. Dedicated to “enhancing tourism service quality as well as strengthening industry training and management” as one of its major goals this year, MGTO organized a total of 75 training courses, workshops and seminars in 2015, which won active participation and support among industry partners. Joined by over 2,300 participants in total, the training opportunities were created for tour guides, personnel of travel agencies as well as hospitality, retail and catering industry, etc. Internship was also offered to tourism office personnel from Portuguese-speaking countries. Launched by the Tourist Office last year, the Quality Tourism Services Accreditation Scheme (QTSAS) went on targeting the catering sector in 2015. In line with the scheme, MGTO held an explanation session about QTSAS assessment criteria and a mid-term session for merchants to evaluate and share their progress. Besides a training course named City & Guilds “International Introductory Award in Hospitality Customer Service” for award-winning merchants of 2014, two workshops — “Service Mentality of Frontline Staff” and “Managing Difficult Customers” were held, to help frontline employees embrace a positive attitude at work and improve their service skills. The “Star Merchant Award” was presented to a total of 84 qualified merchants in 2015, with four of them also entitled to the “Service Star Award”. Besides the catering industry, QTSAS will target travel agencies as well next year. In 2015, the Tourist Office also joined hands with the Supporting Office to the Secretariat of China and Portuguese-Speaking Countries Economic Cooperation Forum (Macao) to coordinate internship opportunities at MGTO for tourism office personnel from Portuguese-speaking countries. Through the internship program, the foreign trainees were able to gain a better understanding of local tourism development and MGTO’s daily operation. MGTO took this opportunity to encourage mutual learning and exchange between Macau and the Portuguese-speaking countries, while assisting the countries to train new tourism professionals. There were tourism office personnel from Cape Verde, Guinea-Bissau and East Timor coming to MGTO for training and internship opportunities respectively from March to May this year. In response to current trends in the industry while catering for local trade’s related demands and suggestions, MGTO regularly offers training opportunities targeting relevant professions in partnership with local trade and training institutes. The workshops or classes offered include “Injecting Positive Energy to Excellence Customer Service” Workshop for retail personnel, City & Guilds “International Introductory Award in Conflict Handling” Course for frontline staff of travel agencies, "Effective Travel Agency Supervisory Management" Workshop for travel agency supervisors and managers as well as “Islamic Culture in Tourism Seminar” for tour guides, hotel and travel agency personnel, among others. Besides an endeavor to meet local trade’s demands for training, MGTO equally emphasizes the importance of staff training in the Office. The “Workshop for Effective Complaint Handling”, “International Business Etiquette and Professional Image” Seminar and “Upgrading Media Releases in the Internet Era” Workshop were actively attended by MGTO staff. MGTO welcomes local trade to voice their suggestions about training, and will keep organizing a variety of apt training sessions based on market trends and demands, supporting industry partners to continuously enhance tourism service quality and jointly fostering quality tourism in line with the city’s goal to become a “World Centre of Tourism and Leisure”.
