This year, Tourism Business Management students at IFTM participated in an industrial project as part of their entrepreneurship course to support local entrepreneur James Sun and his business, Best Concepts Planning Limited. James Sun is currently developing an activity centre at the Broadway Hotel, to incorporate three distinct mascots created for his government-funded project "Coracão Em Macau". This initiative seeks to promote intangible cultural assets so that more residents and tourists may comprehend the distinctive Portuguese and Macanese cultures of Macao through online and offline experiences.
As part of the industrial project, students investigated relevant literature to extract valuable knowledge, interviewed over one hundred locals and tourists to gain insight into their perception of the use of mascots, and finally developed a range of business models and concepts for the activity centre. James Sun remarked that the ideas may broaden the product line and spark the interest of a greater number of consumers and tourists in understanding the content related to their intellectual property (IP), therefore enabling "Coracão Em Macau" in gaining commercial advantages. The course leader, Dr. Fernando Lourenço believed that this is a fruitful way to engage tourism business management students to understand more about the work involved in tourism entrepreneurship whilst transferring their effort and knowledge to local entrepreneurs and supporting the tourism industry.