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The Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) hosted its third Tourism Education Student Summit (Ted Summit) - Winter 2017 on 11 January, 2017. This event was an opportunity for the public to view the best of the Institute’s senior student researchers present their findings after having completed a research-based investigation of the current state of affairs within the Macao tourism industry.Starting from the 2015/16 academic year, IFT’s Bachelor of Science daytime degree programmes have incorporated this capstone graduation requirement to ensure that its’ graduating students have capacity, not only in practical operations but in analysing and understanding how to utilise currents trends in the industry.This past semester 121 undergraduates have successfullycompleted this research component. To date, 404 undergraduate students have successfully completed the graduation thesis; 61 have been invited to present and publish in the IFT Tourism Education Student Summit e-Proceedings, and an additional 12 have presented their research findings in international conferences from which three achieved outstanding paper awards.IFT is the only higher education institution in Macao that includes this individual research component as a graduation requirement for all its Bachelor of Science undergraduate candidates. Industry professionals and IFT faculty comprised the panel members for each of the four simultaneous sessions. Students presented their research findings and then responded to comments and questions from the panel. Finally 4 students, representing best paper recipients from the different programmes showcasedat this event were awarded scholarships. This event was an opportunity for companies to view some of the IFT best candidates as well as understand what the students have been able to discover through their investigation.The Ted Summit represents the first public event of its kind in Macao to celebrate and promote respect for the practical applications of undergraduate research. As a public Higher Education Institution of Macao, IFT considers this element of its curriculum a flagship endeavour that will help to develop future managers. Guiding them through a scientific process of investigation gives them essential managerial tools. The Ted Summit events will occur twice annually, in winter and spring, to coincide with its’ different cohorts of research candidates.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 101 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 8 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).

Best paper scholarship awardees:

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A research project on using DNA barcoding for species identification of medicinal plants, mainly conducted by the University of Macau (UM) and Peking Union Medical College, received a second prize of the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award.
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A research project on using DNA barcoding for species identification of medicinal plants, mainly conducted by the University of Macau (UM) and Peking Union Medical College, received a second prize of the State Scientific and Technological Progress Award.
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For the implementation of Section 2b), Article 10, Law 4/95/M of 12 June, Consumer Council on 10 January collects prices of fresh pork from wet markets and supermarkets for consumers’ reference. The mentioned data collected during 4 January to 10 January are used for comparing the average selling price of the same products from Zhuhai and Hong Kong. The relevant data has been uploaded to the Council’s website for consumers’ reference.The specific price surveys on fresh pork and vegetables are now available on the Council’s website (www.consumer.gov.mo), iPhone & Android ‘Supermarket Price Information Platform’ app, and the Council’s WeChat Account page. The relevant surveys include the average selling prices of local fresh pork and vegetables, and comparison on the respective the average selling prices rom Zhuhai, HK, and Macao.For enquiry, please call 8988 9315.
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For the implementation of Section 2b), Article 10, Law 4/95/M of 12 June, Consumer Council on 10 January collects prices of fresh pork from wet markets and supermarkets for consumers’ reference. The mentioned data collected during 4 January to 10 January are used for comparing the average selling price of the same products from Zhuhai and Hong Kong. The relevant data has been uploaded to the Council’s website for consumers’ reference.
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The Macao Museum of Art (MAM), under the auspices of the Cultural Affairs Bureau, and the Black-And-White Photographic Society of Macao co-organize the exhibition : Love of Macao– Photographs by Lee Kung Kim, featuring 150 excellent documental photography works under the theme of Macao. The donation ceremony and the vernissage will be held on Wednesday, 11 January, at 6:30pm, at the auditorium on the 1^st floor of the MAM. Participants in the ceremony will receive a limited edition postcard of the exhibition “Love of Macao”; while the Love of Macao– Photographs by Lee Kung Kim Exhibition Catalogue will also be available for sale on site. On the day of the ceremony, the exhibition will be extended until 8pm. All are welcome.Lee Kung Kim (1930-2015), an experienced Macao photographer, was born in Meizhou and started taking photographs in the 1950s. He was the President and Chairman of the board of the Photographic Society of Macao – the largest and most important photography association in Macao, the consultant of the China Photographers Association as well as the Honorary President of a number of photographic associations. He was dedicated to photography for over half a century and won awards in many international photography competitions.Respecting his wishes and in support of cultural activities, his family members unconditionally donated all of his works, including film rolls, to the Macao Museum of Art as permanent collection. In this exhibition, 150 excellent documental works under the theme of Macao were specially selected and divided into the series patriotism and local customs, showing the life aspects in Macao in the 1960s and 1970s and reflecting a true piece of Macao’s history, and conveying to the public deep impressions of the city.The exhibition : Love of Macao– Photographs by Lee Kung Kim is held on the 1^st floor of the MAM until 9 July 2017. The MAM, located at Avenida Xian Xing Hai, is open daily from 10am to 7pm (no admittance after 6:30pm, closed on Mondays). Admission is free. For more information about the exhibition, please visit www.MAM.gov.mo. For enquiries, please call through tel. no. 8791 9814 during opening hours.
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The 16^th Macao City Fringe Festival, organized by the Cultural Affairs Bureau and co-organized by the Civic and Municipal Affairs Bureau, will take place from 13 to 22 January, with an opening ceremony to be held on Saturday, 14 January, at 3pm, at the Old Court Building. On the day of the opening ceremony, six excellent shows will be presented, including Zuò Zuò Tea House, Night, Mobile Kitchen, In Good Hands, Body Code: Post-colonial Blue Birds and Antiwords, offering a rich and diverse programme for the public to enjoy the feast of art this weekend. Few tickets are still available for some of the shows. The public is advised to purchase their tickets as soon as possible.This edition of the Macao City Fringe Festival, taking “A Feast of Creativity! Bon Appétit!” as a slogan and adopting the concept of “All around the city, our stages, our patrons, our artists” again, invites artists from local and different parts of the world to participate, in order to create a distinctive event in the city. On the day of the opening ceremony, the performance Zuò Zuò Tea House, to be hosted in 6 consecutive sessions in the afternoon, reveals the solitude and secrets in Rua da Felicidade by combining elements of dance and music and digging into the history of the red-light district. At night, Night, rendered by Circolando from Portugal, encourages audience to question on languages and aesthetics through the dialogue with live music manipulated by a DJ and an intensely physical and emotional dance by a trio of men; Mobile Kitchen, invites an illustration designer and movie actress, Mi Lee, to make Chinese cuisine and share her life stories; In Good Hands, presented by Irish, is an interactive performance of music and storytelling at salon, revealing the secrets, trusts and human needs; the dance Body Code: Post-colonial Blue Birds, performed by contemporary dancers from Hong Kong, Macao and Taiwan, tells the colonial history of the three cities by using body language to leave historical marks behind; the performance Antiwords, presented by two actresses in huge masks, stimulate the audience with absurd humour as drunken characters in the show.In the “Thematic talks: Foreign Theatre – Body, Memory and Labour” on Sunday, 15 January, at 4pm, at Sir Robert Ho Tung Library, Husam Abed from Jordan, Lam Teng Teng and Kevin Chio from the Rolling Puppet Alternative Theatre in Macao, Nicole Vong from Macau Experimental Theatre and Cally Yu from Hong Kong to share their creation process in artistic career. Admission is free. Registration for the thematic talks is now open, subject to availability.Tickets are available through the Macau Ticketing Network. Online registration for the outreach programme is available at www.icm.gov.mo/eform/event. For more information about the programmes, please visit the Macao City Fringe Festival’s webpage at www.macaucityfringe.gov.mo. 24-hour Ticketing hotline: 2855 5555; online ticketing: www.macauticket.com.
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The 13^th China Expo Forum for International Cooperation (CEFCO 2017) will be held from January 12 to 14 at the Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel, under the theme of Embracing Change, expecting to attract nearly 800 elites of global Meeting, Incentive, Convention, and Exhibition (MICE) industry and business men to attend. This year’s Forum emphasizes the invitation to the representatives from Portuguese-speaking Countries, in order to highlight Macao’s role as the cooperation platform between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries.CEFCO 2017 is co-organized by the China Council for the Promotion of International Trade (CCPIT), the Global Association of the Exhibition Industry (UFI), the International Association of Exhibitions and Events (IAEE), and the Society of Independent Show Organizers (SISO), and jointly coordinated by the China Chamber of International Commerce (CCOIC) and the Macao Trade and Investment Promotion Institute (IPIM). To deepen the media’s understanding of this year’s Forum, following the press conference held in Beijing on December 12, 2016, another press conference was held in Macao today (January 10, 2017), and IPIM Executive Director, Irene V. K. Lau and Deputy Director of the Department of Exposition of the CCOIC, Wang Rui introduced the latest preparations of CEFCO 2017.According to Irene V. K. Lau, she was very pleased that Macao became the first region besides Mainland China to hold the Forum, and she believed that this Forum will serve as affirmation to the development of Macao MICE industry and promote the communication and cooperation between Macao’s exhibition companies and their overseas and domestic peers, so that professionals of the international convention and exhibition industry could better understand the advantages of Macao´s MICE market, including policy advantages. As a matter of fact, the 13th Five-Year Plan of the People’s Republic of China continues to support Macao to actively develop industries such as convention, exhibition and trade. The Macao SAR Government provides a series of support to the organizers and participants in trade fairs. In terms of advantages in hardware and software, Macao offers over 190 thousand square meters of large-scale international convention and exhibition venues as well as hotel and catering facilities. The scale and professional level of the convention and exhibition professionals also continues to rise, providing strong support for promoting the internationalization and professional development of Macao´s MICE industry. In turn, Wang Rui believed that Macau, through this Forum, could demonstrate to the global MICE sector its unique charm.During CEFCO 2017, “Global CEO Roundtable” will be held for the first time. Besides, there will be 3 plenary sessions, 4 sub-group meetings and 4 thematic lectures. On the sessions and meetings, important topics such as “Transformation of Exhibition Industry assists the Global Economic Recovery”, “Approach to Internationalization of Exhibition Companies”, “New Direction of Global MICE Industry under the ‘Belt and Road’ Initiative”, “Change in the Government’s role in Promoting the Development of the Exhibition Industry” and “Innovative Road of Macao MICE Industry” will be discussed. On the thematic lectures, hot innovations such as Cloud platforms and VR technology will be discussed. From the perspectives of government, enterprises and associations, it will be discussed how the global exhibition industry should seize the opportunity, embrace the challenge, and realize its transformation and development under the new circumstances where world economic recovery remains slow and China is accelerating its economic transformation and modernization.“Exhibition and negotiation area for Macao exhibition enterprises” is set up to assist enterprises in expanding business opportunitiesThis year’s Forum highlights the invitation to representatives from Portuguese-speaking Countries. So far, it has been confirmed that a lot of representatives from Portuguese-speaking countries, mainly from Angola, Brazil, Guinea-Bissau, Mozambique and Portugal, will attend the Forum, which will make full use of Macao’s role as a cooperation platform and also enhance the level of internationalization of this year’s event. The Forum will bring together representatives from well-known domestic, overseas and Macao exhibition industry as guest speakers to increase the participation of Macao MICE industry, and arrange visits to Macao convention and exhibition facilities and meanwhile experiencing the cultural tourism features of Macao, so as to deepen the participants' understanding of Macao's convention and exhibition facilities as well as Macao's economy and culture. In addition, the Forum will also set up an “exhibition and negotiation area for Macao exhibition enterprises”, Macao MICE enterprises and the six gaming concessionaires and sub-concessionaires will participate in the event. Participants will be able to visit the exhibition area during the event and communicate with the Macao MICE enterprises, boosting cooperation with the local exhibition industry on business opportunities.Since its foundation in 2005,CEFCO has adhered to the idea of “opening-up, cooperation and win-win”. Moreover, CEFCO has actively engaged in the construction of a platform for exchange and cooperation between China and foreign countries’ exhibition industry and has been successfully held in Beijing, Guangzhou, Shanghai and other places for 12 consecutive years, attracting annually about 800 foreign and domestic guests from well-known Chinese and foreign exhibition companies, industry organizations, professional media, research institutions and the official entities responsible for the sector. Every year, the Forum releases China’s Exhibition Economy Development Report composed by the CCPIT, which reviews comprehensively the policies, laws, regulations, industry trends and market characteristics of China’s exhibition industry and which has become an important window for overseas and domestic MICE industry to know more about the China’s exhibition industry.
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The 13^th China Expo Forum for International Cooperation (CEFCO 2017) will be held from January 12 to 14 at the Venetian Macao-Resort-Hotel, under the theme of Embracing Change, expecting to attract nearly 800 elites of global Meeting, Incentive, Convention, and Exhibition (MICE) industry and business men to attend. This year’s Forum emphasizes the invitation to the representatives from Portuguese-speaking Countries, in order to highlight Macao’s role as the cooperation platform between China and Portuguese-speaking Countries.
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Prof Spencer Li De, associate dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Macau (UM), was recently re-elected as the president of the Asian Association for Substance Abuse Research (AASAR) for a three-year term at the organisation’s fourth annual meeting.The AASAR is a leading international association in Asia dedicated to substance abuse research. The organisation aims to promote scientific research and evidence-based prevention and treatment policies in substance abuse in Asia. Members of the association include prominent scholars, policymakers, administrators, industry practitioners, and volunteers from various countries and regions in Asia.The International Conference on Cooperation in Substance Abuse Research and Antidrug Practices in Asia 2016 was held at Chung Cheng University in Taiwan. The conference focused on multiple topics, including causes and consequences of substance abuse, drug prevention, drug treatment, and drug-related policies. More than 200 scholars, policymakers, administrators, and service providers from Asia and elsewhere discussed substance abuse research, prevention and treatment, as well as related opportunities, strategies, and challenges. During the conference, Prof Li delivered a presidential address and a keynote speech. A number of PhD students and master’s students from UM also attended the conference.
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