Post by FIUBlue82 on Jan 20, 2008 13:46:53 GMT -5
There's this story in South Florida CEO. Another great accomplishment by FIU.
www.southfloridaceo.com/article695.html
Chinese Hospitality
Joseph West is helping FIU, and perhaps South Florida, crack an increasingly popular Eastern market.
By Lauren Marshall
Well-Trained Joseph West, with students in FIU’s School of Hospitality kitchen, has expanded to a Chinese campus.
A South Florida university has opened China’s first United States-based hospitality school, granting that nation’s only authorized hotel management degree. In 2006, Florida International University opened a School of Hospitality and Tourism Management campus in Tianjin, China. It remains that nation’s only US-based hospitality campus. The bonus: The Chinese government funded it.
FIU “has the opportunity right now of educating the new leaders of China’s hospitality industry. We have the ability to make an incredible stamp on a country’s development,” says Joseph West, dean of FIU’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management.
FIU is putting its stamp on a nation the World Tourism Organization projects will become the most-visited on the planet by 2020. By 2010, it predicts, China’s tourism industry will create 10 million jobs, increasing by an average of 500,000 per year.
Those kinds of growth forecasts undoubtedly helped motivate the Tianjin Municipal Government, which approached FIU in 2003 to discuss a partnership with Tianjin University of Commerce to develop a hospitality program there. West admits he was not so intrigued by the offer at first, but eventually the Chinese government’s persistence won over him and FIU President Modesto A. Maidique. With the Chinese footing the $50 million bill for FIU’s freestanding 450,000-square-foot property on 80 acres in China’s third-largest city, FIU enrolled its first students to the satellite campus in August 2006.
The curriculum is identical to the hospitality management curriculum taught at FIU’s Miami-Dade campus. More than 750 students are enrolled in the China center, with the first group of about 40 set to graduate in April 2008. Maximum capacity for the program is 2,000 students, and more are applying than can be admitted, West says. The program eventually will bring in revenue for FIU. “We anticipate that when we’re fully up and operational, we will have positive free cash flow of about a million dollars a year that will come back to the school to be used to enhance the education of both our Chinese students and our Miami students,” West says.
Employer demand for graduates of FIU’s Chinese program is strong, he adds, saying, “We have every Western hotel company in China waiting to employ our students,” and naming the Marriott, Hyatt and Sheraton hotel chains. One reason for this attention? The program is taught in English, so “they’ll be fluent English speakers with an FIU hospitality degree,” West explains.
Hartmut Schaller, general manager of Marriott International Inc.’s Renaissance Tianjin Teda Hotel and Convention Center, which opened in 2004, works with FIU’s China program on the students’ required practical internship. He thinks overall, the Chinese reaction to FIU’s presence is positive. “The program will definitely provide qualified talents for [the] hotel industry in China,” he says.
June Teufel Dreyer, a political science professor at the University of Miami’s School of Business who specializes in Chinese politics, explains further why China might have chosen to partner with a US school such as FIU. “China gains a lot of foreign exchange from foreign tourism,” she says, “and China will be more attractive as a destination if there are professional hotel staffs, travel agents and dining facilities to accommodate their needs and preferences.”
The Chinese government went so far as to actively help market FIU’s China campus, including using state-sponsored television and radio. “Every time we did something, we made the national news,” West says. He explains that he was on China’s most popular talk show — with an audience of 300 million people — and received more than 1,000 questions via e-mail during the show.
While there are distinct advantages to being chosen and funded by the Chinese government, there are also some inevitable pitfalls. West explains that China’s Ministry of Education “has been looking at foreign programs under a microscope lately.” After originally signing a contract for FIU to admit 500 students a year to the China campus, the Ministry of Education summarily changed the number to 200, without any room for negotiation.
Still, FIU is making the most of its Chinese location. In the fall of 2007, 12 students from the Miami-Dade campus studied in China, and 15 Tianjin students did the same in Miami-Dade. West says this free movement across campuses is important for FIU to “develop our international globalization aspect.” In addition to benefiting from the rich culture, students at the China campus will have the opportunity, through the program, to work at the Summer 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
South Florida’s tourism industry may benefit, too. David Woodward, executive director of Miami-based Florida-China Association Inc., explains that Florida has always been a distant destination in Chinese minds. He says FIU’s China center “will help put Florida better on the map” and “could benefit our state by raising the awareness level of Florida as a great tourist destination for Chinese tourists.” Woodward says there has been increasing interest in the state of late not only from Chinese tourists, but from Chinese businesses as well. “The fact that we’re the gateway to Latin America helps,” he says, “as China does a tremendous amount of business with Latin America.”
www.southfloridaceo.com/article695.html
Chinese Hospitality
Joseph West is helping FIU, and perhaps South Florida, crack an increasingly popular Eastern market.
By Lauren Marshall
Well-Trained Joseph West, with students in FIU’s School of Hospitality kitchen, has expanded to a Chinese campus.
A South Florida university has opened China’s first United States-based hospitality school, granting that nation’s only authorized hotel management degree. In 2006, Florida International University opened a School of Hospitality and Tourism Management campus in Tianjin, China. It remains that nation’s only US-based hospitality campus. The bonus: The Chinese government funded it.
FIU “has the opportunity right now of educating the new leaders of China’s hospitality industry. We have the ability to make an incredible stamp on a country’s development,” says Joseph West, dean of FIU’s School of Hospitality and Tourism Management.
FIU is putting its stamp on a nation the World Tourism Organization projects will become the most-visited on the planet by 2020. By 2010, it predicts, China’s tourism industry will create 10 million jobs, increasing by an average of 500,000 per year.
Those kinds of growth forecasts undoubtedly helped motivate the Tianjin Municipal Government, which approached FIU in 2003 to discuss a partnership with Tianjin University of Commerce to develop a hospitality program there. West admits he was not so intrigued by the offer at first, but eventually the Chinese government’s persistence won over him and FIU President Modesto A. Maidique. With the Chinese footing the $50 million bill for FIU’s freestanding 450,000-square-foot property on 80 acres in China’s third-largest city, FIU enrolled its first students to the satellite campus in August 2006.
The curriculum is identical to the hospitality management curriculum taught at FIU’s Miami-Dade campus. More than 750 students are enrolled in the China center, with the first group of about 40 set to graduate in April 2008. Maximum capacity for the program is 2,000 students, and more are applying than can be admitted, West says. The program eventually will bring in revenue for FIU. “We anticipate that when we’re fully up and operational, we will have positive free cash flow of about a million dollars a year that will come back to the school to be used to enhance the education of both our Chinese students and our Miami students,” West says.
Employer demand for graduates of FIU’s Chinese program is strong, he adds, saying, “We have every Western hotel company in China waiting to employ our students,” and naming the Marriott, Hyatt and Sheraton hotel chains. One reason for this attention? The program is taught in English, so “they’ll be fluent English speakers with an FIU hospitality degree,” West explains.
Hartmut Schaller, general manager of Marriott International Inc.’s Renaissance Tianjin Teda Hotel and Convention Center, which opened in 2004, works with FIU’s China program on the students’ required practical internship. He thinks overall, the Chinese reaction to FIU’s presence is positive. “The program will definitely provide qualified talents for [the] hotel industry in China,” he says.
June Teufel Dreyer, a political science professor at the University of Miami’s School of Business who specializes in Chinese politics, explains further why China might have chosen to partner with a US school such as FIU. “China gains a lot of foreign exchange from foreign tourism,” she says, “and China will be more attractive as a destination if there are professional hotel staffs, travel agents and dining facilities to accommodate their needs and preferences.”
The Chinese government went so far as to actively help market FIU’s China campus, including using state-sponsored television and radio. “Every time we did something, we made the national news,” West says. He explains that he was on China’s most popular talk show — with an audience of 300 million people — and received more than 1,000 questions via e-mail during the show.
While there are distinct advantages to being chosen and funded by the Chinese government, there are also some inevitable pitfalls. West explains that China’s Ministry of Education “has been looking at foreign programs under a microscope lately.” After originally signing a contract for FIU to admit 500 students a year to the China campus, the Ministry of Education summarily changed the number to 200, without any room for negotiation.
Still, FIU is making the most of its Chinese location. In the fall of 2007, 12 students from the Miami-Dade campus studied in China, and 15 Tianjin students did the same in Miami-Dade. West says this free movement across campuses is important for FIU to “develop our international globalization aspect.” In addition to benefiting from the rich culture, students at the China campus will have the opportunity, through the program, to work at the Summer 2008 Olympics in Beijing.
South Florida’s tourism industry may benefit, too. David Woodward, executive director of Miami-based Florida-China Association Inc., explains that Florida has always been a distant destination in Chinese minds. He says FIU’s China center “will help put Florida better on the map” and “could benefit our state by raising the awareness level of Florida as a great tourist destination for Chinese tourists.” Woodward says there has been increasing interest in the state of late not only from Chinese tourists, but from Chinese businesses as well. “The fact that we’re the gateway to Latin America helps,” he says, “as China does a tremendous amount of business with Latin America.”