Participants pleased with UN training program for tourism industry

Nanda Soe Myint

The fifth training program in “Capacity Building for Destination Marketing & Tourism Development” brought together 19 participants from different countries such as Myanmar, Pakistan and China. The event, which was held from May 24 to 31, was hosted by the Global Center for Tourism Education and Training of the Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) and the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO).

The Times spoke to one the participants, Nanda Soe Myint, an assistant director of the Tourism Promotion Department of the Ministry of Hotels and Tourism of Myanmar, who was part of the awards ceremony and led a group of 10 participants from the Southeast Asian country.

Nanda told the Times that participants of the one-week long course “learned a lot of new techniques and tools, especially in what concerns tourism development.”

“We need to [learn] more techniques from more advanced [and experienced] countries [and regions] in this field of tourism like Macau and China and to adopt and implement those in our country too, especially on what concerns to promotion and marketing [tools directed at] the Chinese tourists,” he added.

According to the Burmese group leader, “in 2016, we have received nearly 180,000 Indonesian and Chinese tourists and last year we received [about] 200,000 Chinese tourists, [a result which we think] came from our participation in travel events and fairs namely in Beijing and Kunming [which allow] interested Chinese tourists to learn more about Myanmar.”

Nanda added that although there are no concrete figures as yet, “we can say that we are already receiving more [tourists] than last year,” noting that these tourists visit the country, “[mostly] to [see our] cultural heritage but also they show interest in new experiences that we can offer, as we have a [broad] variety of tourism products, like in the northern part were we have the snowcap mountain and in the south we have beaches and islets, so in one destination they can experience a variety of experiences,” he explained.

Last week, IFT held a certificate presentation ceremony for all the participants.

The group also met with the Secretary for Social Affairs and Culture, Alexis Tam.

The training program included case studies, experience sharing, presentations and site visits as well as lectures delivered by IFT professors and other invited scholars. Visits to Macau’s historical center were also included.

The integrated resorts were not left out of the sites visited and studied, with a tour being held at the MGM Cotai resort which also included a session in which MGM’s Catarina Lio and Frederica Fok delivered a talk on destination marketing and branding strategies.

This is the fifth time that a program of this kind is held by IFT since the Centre was established with the purpose of enhancing the quality of human capital and increasing the competitiveness of tourism destinations, particularly in the Asia Pacific Region, and achieving sustainable tourism development.