To implement the spirit of General Secretary Xi Jinping’s important speech at the Global Service Trade Summit in September this year, dialectically deal with the opportunities and challenges brought about by the epidemic, and promote the leap-forward development of the modern service industry, "Hotel Strategic Management and Marketing" and "International Iconic Service Ambassador Training Strategy" International Advanced Seminar was held in Shanghai QUBE Hotel on September 26.

This event was sponsored by our college and co-organized by Shanghai Urban Construction Donghu Hotel Management School, Greenland Hotel Tourism Group, American Hotel Association Shanghai Representative Office and Shanghai Zhineng Enterprise Management Consulting Co., Ltd. The event also gained guidance from Shanghai Tourism Industry Association Hotel Industry Branch, Shanghai Industry-Education Cooperative Education Association and supports from various media.

This seminar includes famous scholars and industry experts, like Dr. Stowe Shoemaker, Dean of the Hotel Management School at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, Arno Nicolussi Moretto, Primum Brand Operations Director, and General Manager of Greenland Hotels & Tourism Group Complex Hotel, Liu Jian, General Manager of Hyatt Regency in Shanghai Hongqiao Business District and Hyatt House Hotel. They shared and discussed management concepts and talent training models together with more than 60 participating guests and over 40 online teachers in the meeting.

At the opening ceremony, SUCC President Ye Yinzhong delivered a speech. He said that the hotel management major of our college is a first-class construction major in Shanghai. As a vocational college for training hotel talents, it is also facing the journey of building a new vision amidst changes. In response to the new characteristics and requirements of the industry, more attention should be paid to cultivating students' ability to resist stress in workplace, global vision and professional ability. College teachers must have a deeper grasp of the status and trends of the industry, be more closely connected with the industry by updating concepts, expanding thinking, and improving professional realm, to educate better students and better serve the development of the industry.

Zhao Jian, deputy director of the Higher Education Division of Shanghai Municipal Education Commission, pointed out that the international senior workshop not only showed the perseverance and entrepreneurial spirit of managers and operators in the global hotel industry, but the spiritual force of participating foreign and local educators who made every great effort to cultivate world-class service ambassadors through elaborate plans, profound studies and hard works. The meeting participants can also experience the powerful force and historical mission of school-enterprise cooperation, and industry-education integration. He herby wished this international advanced seminar a complete success, and all the students could have learned and accomplished.

Wang Yongming, vice president of Shanghai Donghu (Group) Co., Ltd., pointed out in his speech that with the social economic development and the transformation, upgrading of the hotel industry, the operation cope and business mode of the hotel industry are changing, which objectively puts forward new requirements for vocational abilities and innovative thinking of professional talents. Facing unprecedented complexity and difficulties, hotels need to adjust their strategies, put strategic management into daily operation management, formulate appropriate marketing strategies, and find a way to survive, develop and grow in this dramatically changing market environment. "Cultivating international iconic service ambassadors", this hence emerging brand building task, will help improve the hotel strategic management and marketing level from the perspective of talents training.

It is reported that this event takes the building of a collaborative communication platform as its responsibility, it will jointly promote the hotel service industry at both home and abroad, and actively create the collaborative service industry development in Yangtze River Delta and Kashgar, Xinjiang. Industry personnel at the meeting unanimously stated that General Secretary Xi Jinping’s speech at 2020 Global Service Trade Summit of China International Service Trade Fair is inspiring. Only by vigorously promoting the development of the service industry to achieve the quality upgrading of modern service can the vitality of economic and social development be enhanced. It is hereby expected that the industry and academia will reach a consensus, to focus on the international perspective, and speed up in an unconventional way the training of a group of high-end service talents in short supply.

Professor Wu Rui, vice President of Guangxi Foreign Languages College, who participated in the seminar, expressed that although deepening the integration of industry and education is the most effective way to address the talents demand in service industry, this mode has been stagnating in recent years. It is believed that only by broadening the talents cultivating mode and path, can the organic connection of education chain, talent chain, industrial chain and innovation chain be promoted, thus to vigorously promote the fundamental reform of industrial system and higher education system.

During the two-day seminar, Dr. Stowe Shoemaker and a number of domestic "big names" in the hotel industry respectively explained such topics as the international hotel strategic management philosophy, strategic tactics and talents demands analysis, hotel operation breakthrough tactics under the severe global epidemic, and the urgent need to accelerate the emergence of outstanding industry talents and so on. Among them, the value of higher education mentioned by Dr. Stowe Shoemaker is directly related to the quality of teachers. Teachers should be like students, constantly pursue the growth of skills, knowledge and quality. Teachers should work closely with the hotel industry, to grasp the latest trends, practices and processes, and develop courses around them. Liu Jian, General Manager of Hyatt Regency in Shanghai Hongqiao Business District and Hyatt House Hotel, focused on how the hotel industry can break through under the global epidemic, such as hotel operation measures to be taken, taking hotel industry data decline as an introduction.

At the closing ceremony, Vice President Guo Hongtao stated that the seminar focused on topics of deepening the integration of industry and education, strengthening the profound cooperation between tourism and hotel management major in application-oriented universities and vocational colleges and the industry, and exploring the cultivation of international iconic service ambassadors jointly by schools and enterprises. The successful holding of the seminar marks the official launch of the international communication system project of the hotel management major in SUCC. In the next stage, more exchanges and cooperation between schools, enterprises and schools are expected to carry out to jointly play a greater role and achieve greater results in the talent training of industry and education integration, and the development of tourism and hotel undertakings.