Group photo of the IFT Tourism Retail and Marketing Management Year 3 students, the course leader, Fernando Lourenço and management of The Darling Buds of May.
IFT Tourism Retail and Marketing Management students conducted a project to help a local restaurant, The Darling Buds of May, to develop marketing strategies for enhancing their promotional effort, building greater awareness of its presence in Macao and improving their service quality. In this project led by IFT Visiting Assistant Professor, Dr. Fernando Lourenço, students carried out market research, developed and analysed marketing and promotional campaign, in order to promote the latest hot pot promotion of the restaurant and to use this as a launch pad to build greater exposure and awareness of the restaurant. The Darling Buds of May were very satisfied with the results and accepted the marketing measures developed by the winning group of the students and would put them into action. This was an excellent way for IFT to build a stronger link with the industry and offer support to local enterprises. Established in 1995, the Institute for Tourism Studies, Macao (IFT) offers the most extensive selection of tourism and hospitality related bachelor degree programmes in Macao, and about twenty thousand participants attend its vocational and professional training courses annually. IFT collaborates with 97 universities and tourism organisations around the world, and builds strong links with 500 leading tourism and hospitality corporations to offer internship opportunities to its students. Being the first institution accredited by the UNWTO.TedQual Certification System for tourism education, IFT has now 7 bachelor degree programmes with the Certification. Currently, the Institute has the most number of bachelor degree programmes certified under the System of any tertiary education establishment worldwide. IFT has received the Medal of Merit in Tourism from the Macao SAR Government, and won twice the Gold Award in ‘Education and Training’ from the Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA).