In cooperation with Ichipon Sushi, Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) Year 3 Tourism Retail and Marketing Management students taking the Retail and Marketing Business Project course led by Dr. Fernando Lourenço helped a local entrepreneur to promote a new takeaway sushi restaurant, aiming to serve its target customers in Macao. A series of marketing activities was carried out by IFT students in collaboration with Ichipon Sushi including conducting market research, and developing, implementing and evaluating the impact of the digital marketing communication and social media marketing campaigns of the restaurant. This was a fantastic opportunity for IFT students to understand the process of business start-up in relation to the application of social media marketing principles and strategies. Moreover, this was an excellent way to build stronger links with the industry by offering support to local entrepreneurs and businesses. The result of the marketing approaches was fruitful. The IFT students successfully helped the entrepreneur to double its sales. Furthermore, the interaction rate of various social media channels of the restaurant improved immensely and customers' recommendations and feedback on the channels were received, helping the restaurant to build relationships with the target customers. The entrepreneur is very happy with the result and therefore willing to offer summer jobs for our students to manage the social media channels, in addition to have given awards and certificates to congratulate their efforts and hard work. This was a fantastic recognition that proves the success of the students' project. The amazing work of the students can be found on our YouTube channel, where each group of the students prepared a summary of their design in motion picture: http://www.youtube.com/user/YatPun.
