Travel Agency Management

Author: Huang Mingliang
Publisher:
Publishing Date: 2006-05-01
Features: With the rapid development of China's national economy and the continuous improvement of people's living standards, tourism has gradually become an increasingly popular leisure and entertainment choice for the masses. The rise in its status and the huge social demand will become a significant driving force for the development of tourism vocational education. Since the 16th National Congress, the Party Central Committee has proposed the Scientific Outlook on Development, emphasizing a people-centered approach and shifting its focus from GDP-driven growth strategies to a transformation from national concerns to people's livelihoods. Tourism, as a vital component of people's livelihoods, will see its status further elevated in this shift. As tourism gains greater importance in people's lives, it will undoubtedly promote the rapid development of tourism vocational education.
Considering the future integration of tourism and leisure, as well as the demand for highly skilled professionals in the broader leisure system, we can predict that the prospects for tourism vocational education in the coming years will be exceptionally bright. According to statistics from the National Tourism Administration, by the end of 2004, China had 1,313 tourism colleges and universities, with many higher education institutions across provinces (autonomous regions, municipalities) offering tourism-related majors, enrolling a total of 578,600 students. While the scale and quantity of these institutions may seem sufficient to meet the current state of China's tourism industry, from a perspective of specialized education, our existing tourism education still fails to meet the evolving needs of the industry, particularly the growing demand for leisure-related industries, which will be a key direction for tourism's future development.
If a group of highly trained vocational college graduates enter leisure enterprises such as bars and coffee shops, the overall quality of personnel in the city's leisure system would be significantly improved, fostering the formation of leisure industry clusters and expanding the scope for curriculum design. Therefore, tourism management programs should reduce overly broad and generalized courses, instead focusing on refining curriculum settings based on actual needs. The strategy should be to train more professionals when demand expands and fewer when it declines.
In essence, tourism colleges and universities serve as suppliers of tourism education products, needing to address fundamental questions such as what to produce, how much, how to produce it, and for whom. Tourism vocational education faces the same challenges and must continuously improve its training quality and pathways. In both aspects, there is still a long way to go.
First, for China to truly transform from a tourism (large country) to a tourism (powerhouse), it must possess corresponding talent competitiveness. However, in the past, we have primarily focused on the quantity of talent rather than its quality. Second, within the broader tourism education system, tourism vocational education remains a weak link. It has not effectively integrated the characteristics of vocational education to set appropriate training objectives and models, nor has it adequately designed its curriculum and textbook systems. If tourism education fails to cultivate high-quality talent, the development of the tourism economy will inevitably be constrained, and the path of tourism vocational education will also become unsustainable.
To strengthen tourism vocational education, the construction of the curriculum system and textbooks is key. Of course, building a strong faculty and practical training bases are also indispensable. However, textbooks, as carriers of knowledge and ideas, as well as theoretical summaries derived from practice to guide it, possess both foundational and forward-looking characteristics, making them the primary guarantee for cultivating high-quality professionals.
Recognizing this, with the support of the China Renmin University Press, we have organized a team of industry experts—dual-qualified professionals (with both teaching and practical experience)—to boldly reform aspects such as textbook selection, supplementary materials, writing formats, and content arrangements. We have invested significant effort in launching this series of vocational tourism management textbooks. The main features of this series are:
(1) Strong practicality: While ensuring that fundamental theories are sufficient, this series emphasizes the introduction of practical operational processes, using charts, diagrams, and examples to enhance the vividness and intuitiveness of the content.
(2) Bold exploration in curriculum system design: Based on predictions of tourism industry trends and talent demand, new courses such as 《"Three Bars" Service and Management》 and 《Catering Chain Operation and Management》 have been developed. This forward-looking curriculum design will help cultivate and improve the employability of students in tourism vocational colleges.
Of course, as an attempt at reform and innovation in vocational tourism management textbooks, this series will inevitably have its shortcomings, and certain limitations may exist in the curriculum system. Therefore, we sincerely hope that experts, teachers, and students of vocational colleges will provide valuable feedback. Through continuous revisions and improvements, we aim to transform this series into a true masterpiece.