IFT hosts seminar for hospitality industry members

The Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) and Lausanne Hospitality Consulting co-organized a two-day “Executive Development Programme on Strategic Resilience” for professionals in the hospitality sector.
The 18 participants were taught to identify industry challenges through the development of strategic leadership skills. IFT said programme participants were equipped to anticipate strategy decay and plan for resilience through business process re-engineering and innovation.
Topics included “key aspects of reinventing the business model” and “tips for successfully implementing strategic resilience in small- and medium-sized enterprises”, among others.
Rutger Verschuren, area vice president of the Macau operations of Artyzen Hospitality Group and a participant in the programme, said that such seminars would enhance the strategic skills of leaders in the region’s hospitality industry.
“Macau [has gone] through a lot of changes in the last few years and this seminar is mainly about the need for a change [in] planning,” he told the Times.
“Now is a good time because August and September is normally the time we do our budget for next year,” he explained, hinting that the participants would be able to immediately apply the programme’s strategic elements to their upcoming business plans.
Another participant said the two-day course was vital for the participants to prepare for future encounters, stressing that the lecture’s topic was “helpful.”
“It’s not providing you [with] something to immediately solve any challenges you are facing but it’s a very good chance for us to prepare for further challenges,” said the executive director of The Venetian’s Convention and Exhibition Management, Fion Lai.
“The [hospitality] environment is an ever-changing one, including the market, labor, everything,” she added.
IFT said hotel management need to upgrade themselves to cope with changing market trends, and that it is committed to contributing to the tourism industry through education and research.
Held from August 23 to 24, the UNWTO nominated two representatives from the tourism authorities of Myanmar and Bangladesh to attend the programme.