{"id":5228,"date":"2019-07-29T16:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-07-29T08:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www2.ift.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/?p=5228"},"modified":"2021-04-08T11:48:24","modified_gmt":"2021-04-08T03:48:24","slug":"skal-mentorship-scheme-gives-ift-students-access-to-senior-executives-of-tourism-sector","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/skal-mentorship-scheme-gives-ift-students-access-to-senior-executives-of-tourism-sector\/","title":{"rendered":"Sk\u00e5l mentorship scheme gives IFT students access to senior executives of tourism sector"},"content":{"rendered":"\u4e2d\u6587\u6458\u8981 \/ Summary in Chinese<\/span>\n

A new mentorship programme for young people either studying or working in the travel and tourism sector was officially launched in March. It provides participants with opportunities to gain insights and knowledge from veteran industry leaders and executives.<\/p>\n

The programme was set up by Young Sk\u00e5l Macau, an affiliate of Sk\u00e5l International Macau, the latter a group bringing together local travel and tourism leaders.<\/p>\n

A total of 8 Sk\u00e5l International Macau members is acting as mentors for the inaugural edition of the programme, running until January next year. The programme is divided into 2 stages, and a total of 12 Young Sk\u00e5l Macau members has been selected to take part in the scheme, including 10 IFT students.<\/p>\n

Sk\u00e5l International is a global platform bringing together travel and tourism professionals. It was established in Paris, France in 1932, and the Macao division was inaugurated in 1979. Sk\u00e5l International has today approximately 17,000 members spread across 400 clubs throughout more than 80 countries.<\/p>\n

The current chair role for Sk\u00e5l International Macau\u2019s general assembly is held by Ms. Maria Helena de Senna Fernandes, Director of the Macao Government Tourism Office (MGTO). The board of directors is headed by Mr. Jo\u00e3o Manuel Costa Antunes, the former Director of MGTO.<\/p>\n

In a bid to nurture talent for the tourism sector, Sk\u00e5l groups across the globe have since 1999 began setting up Young Sk\u00e5l chapters. Young Sk\u00e5l Macau was inaugurated last year.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe reason [for the establishment of Young Sk\u00e5l Macau] is to support future leaders in tourism, creating opportunities for senior executives to share experiences with them,\u201d says Mr. Costa Antunes. This is where the Young Sk\u00e5l International Macau Mentorship Programme comes into play.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhen you start working after graduation, it\u2019s difficult to have somebody to be with you and guide you through,\u201d Mr. Costa Antunes explains. \u201cVia this programme, we the mentors can provide students and young professionals with support: they have the opportunity to ask us questions about their work,\u201d thus helping to enhance their career prospects, he says.<\/p>\n

Mr. Costa Antunes advises young professionals in tourism to experience different areas of the industry in the early stages of their career, better to understand in which fields they can thrive. Also, he says, such professionals should work to expand their contact network.<\/p>\n

Direct access<\/strong><\/p>\n

The Young Sk\u00e5l International Macau Mentorship Programme offers access to mentors from several professional fields, namely entertainment, marketing and public relations, management and business administration, and hospitality. Each young person participating can select 2 fields in which to be coached.<\/p>\n

Ms. Wini Cheong, President of Young Sk\u00e5l Macau, says the current 8 programme mentors come respectively from government bodies such as MGTO, but also from IFT, local hotels and other companies and institutions.<\/p>\n

\u201cEach mentor will coach 1 to 2 mentees and they will meet face-to-face at least once a month while keeping in touch on a regular basis,\u201d says Ms. Cheong, an IFT alumna. \u201cWithout this programme, it\u2019s difficult for students and young professionals to have a chance to be in direct communication with top management executives.\u201d<\/p>\n

Having worked in hospitality for 7 years and now running an event and wedding planning company, Ms. Cheong stresses it is important for young professionals to experience different work areas at the start of their career. \u201cThe mentors can inform them about it,\u201d she says.<\/p>\n

Ms. Cheong says Young Sk\u00e5l Macau is now boosting promotion about its work and the mentorship programme, in order to increase the organisation\u2019s membership and have more people joining the scheme.<\/p>\n

Ms. Ada Chio de la Cruz is Vice-President of Destination Marketing and Brand Strategy at casino hotel Grand Lisboa. She is also one of the mentors on the Sk\u00e5l programme. \u201cWe hope that the mentees can find out what is most suitable for them in the tourism industry through this programme, saving them some years of looking around for the answers, as we had to do,\u201d she explains.<\/p>\n

Ms. Chio de la Cruz says the mentoring is to help participants gain greater self-knowledge, and therefore assist them in making the right career decisions. \u201cWe are not here to teach them anything,\u201d she points out.<\/p>\n

Participant Alex Wu hopes the mentorship scheme can allow him to know more about different roles within event planning. \u201cIt is a golden opportunity for me, to find out what the hospitality sector is really like,\u201d says Alex, an IFT student of Tourism Event Management.<\/p>\n

Alex hopes being a participant in the Young Sk\u00e5l International Macau Mentorship Programme can help him succeed in his 6-month curricular internship \u2013 part of his IFT study programme. \u201cShould I encounter any problem during the internship, I can ask the mentors for advice.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A new mentorship programme for young people either studying or working in the travel and tourism sector was officially launched in March. It provides participants with opportunities to gain insights […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":5229,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[136,1704],"tags":[1186,1184,1181,1180,1183,1185,1182],"class_list":["post-5228","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-main_headline","category-university-news","tag-ada-chio-de-la-cruz","tag-costa-antunes","tag-mentorship","tag-skal","tag-skal-international-macau","tag-wini-cheong","tag-young-skal-macau"],"views":1113,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5228","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5228"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5228\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":5237,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5228\/revisions\/5237"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5229"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5228"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5228"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.utm.edu.mo\/NewsPortal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5228"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}