MGTO offers training opportunities to enhance tourism service quality - Nearly 100 courses and seminars held

Macau Government Tourist Office (MGTO) keeps providing a diverse range of specific and professional training opportunities for local travel trade to enhance their service quality and work efficiency overall in the industry, so as to uplift quality tourism. From this January to October, the Office has held nearly 100 courses and seminars including training sessions for the Quality Tourism Services Accreditation Scheme and those specifically for the 8th APEC Tourism Ministerial Meeting.

Dedicated to "strengthen industry training and management; enhance tourism service quality" as one of its objectives this year, MGTO has organized a variety of 96 training courses and seminars during the period from January to October with active participation and support from industry partners. Admitting over 2,900 participants, the training sessions were designed for personnel from travel agencies, retail business, hotel and catering industry as well as tour guides and tour bus drivers.

In April, MGTO launched the Quality Tourism Services Accreditation Scheme (QTSAS). The purpose is not only to establish service quality standards for the tourism industry, encourage and support industry partners to provide higher quality service, but also to commend tourism businesses for their excellent service. The catering industry was chosen to kick off the scheme this year. To familiarize participating merchants with the assessment criteria, MGTO hosted a session in June to explain the QTSAS assessment criteria and simple steps for participants to develop their improvement action plan. The session also shared with participants a wealth of skills and tips on their conduct at work and aspects to notice in pursuit of service improvement. Relevant training courses were also held to foster the scheme, including the "Service Accreditation Scheme – Frontline Staff Service Attitude Training" organized by MGTO and Macau Institute of Management for participating merchants in September. This session aimed to boost the level and self-value of frontline staff with a positive mindset built up through customer service psychology so as to promote business branding in the industry.

To prepare for the 8th APEC Tourism Ministerial Meeting and 45th APEC Tourism Working Group Meeting in September, MGTO held a series of training sessions in August for student volunteers, MGTO staff and outsourced public relation personnel in charge of welcoming the meeting attendees. The three training sessions covered two topics as follow: "Introduction of Macau" and "Professional Etiquette in Service Industry". The sessions aimed to nurture a good service attitude in participants and help them to review Macau's history and tourism information, give an impressive image of quality service and be well prepared for the hospitality work during the meetings.

MGTO offered professional training opportunities to meet the specific needs and suggestions of the tourism sector. Held in September, the "Crisis Management Workshop for Professional Tour Guides" gave a lecture on positive skills to handle crisis and unexpected incidents for licensed tour guides in Macau. The Office also held another crisis management seminar for over 200 participants from retail business, associations and QTSAS-qualified merchants. In October, the Office invited a speaker from Travel Industry Council of Hong Kong to address a three-day "Workshop for Travel Agency Frontline Staff – Tour Escort", the first-of-its-kinds training workshop organized by MGTO.

Considering the Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT)'s publication of "Macau Tourist Satisfaction Index (MTSI) Study for Retail Shops and Suggestions for Service Improvement" which suggests a demand of more training sessions to address service and language skills, MGTO held the "New Retail Approach: How to Create Customer Experience Workshop" in the first half of this year to enhance the service skills of retail shop personnel; the "English Workshop for Retail Sector" was held in June to lecture retail employees on common English vocabulary used at work.

The number of Muslim visitors has been climbing up in Macau in recent years. In response to the trend, MGTO will partner with a lecturer from the University of Al-Azhar Indonesia to host two sessions namely the "Workshop for Islamic Culture in Tourism" this month. The university lecturer is recommended by MGTO's market representative in Indonesia. In addition, the Office will host a "Mandarin Workshop for Retail Sector" this month.

Aside from the tourism sector, the Office often provides different types of training for MGTO's staff as well, including a session about "professional etiquette in service industry" and a "Media Handling Workshop".

MGTO will maintain close partnership with local sectors and training institutes to organize different kinds of training sessions to cater for the need of industry partners. Meanwhile, the Office will make a continued effort to build Macau into a quality tourist city in line with Macau's development strategy to establish a "World Centre of Tourism and Leisure".

sourced:traveldailynews.asia