Discussion on Hunan MICE Tourism Education

With the development of international convention and exhibition industry, following the rise of urban sightseeing, shopping tourism, holiday tourism, environmental protection tourism, adventure tourism and other projects, convention and exhibition tourism, a new tourism project, has become a new growth point of tourism and attracted great attention from tourism departments because of its strong compatibility, wide radiation, high consumption level and high cultural content. Convention and exhibition industry is known as "the bread of the city". Hunan MICE tourism started late and the degree of specialization is not high. In order to become a center of exhibition tourism in China and even the world, we must increase investment and cultivate a high-quality and professional exhibition team. This paper intends to make a preliminary discussion on the education of mice tourism in Hunan, hoping to play a role in attracting jade and make suggestions for the development of mice tourism education in Hunan.

I. Interpretation of Basic Concepts

(1) MICE tourism.

MICE tourism is a new form of tourism, and the concept of MICE tourism is an "exotic product", which appeared as a new term in China in 1990s. There are different opinions on the connotation and extension of the concept of mice tourism in China, and there is no clear definition. At present, the definition of MICE tourism widely quoted in China refers to international standards. The internationally known MICE tourism includes three parts: incentive tourism, conference and exhibition (MICE, namely conference, reward,

Conferences and exhibitions), the basic meaning is to hold various types of conferences, such as exhibitions, expositions, trade fairs, investment fairs, press conferences, professional and special conferences, award ceremonies, festivals, cultural activities, scientific and technological activities, sports meetings, etc. , attract guests from all sides to come to negotiate business, exchange visits, and provide them with food, shelter, transportation, travel and sports.

(2) MICE tourism education.

MICE tourism education is developed on the basis of the rise of MICE tourism. Facing new research fields, it aims at cultivating all kinds of specialized talents needed by the MICE tourism market. It has a multi-level education system including vocational training, secondary vocational education, higher vocational education, undergraduate education and postgraduate education. It is academic education and vocational training with the teaching mode of systematically imparting MICE tourism professional knowledge and strengthening practical skills training [1]. The development of any industry is inseparable from the support of education, and mice tourism is no exception. At present, China's exhibition professionals are scarce, and the exhibition tourism industry is still in the stage of extensive management. The problem of talents has become the "bottleneck" in the development of mice tourism economy in China [2]. Therefore, it is urgent for our country to develop the education of MICE tourism and cultivate the professionals of MICE tourism. MICE tourism talents can be divided into core talents, auxiliary talents and supporting talents.

Second, the necessity of developing Hunan MICE tourism education

(A) the needs of the rapid development of mice tourism in Hunan.

In recent years, the exhibition tourism in Hunan has developed rapidly, which has directly or indirectly created great benefits for the local area. In 2005, Changsha held 2 17 exhibitions, including more than 20 national exhibitions, and the sales revenue of exhibitions reached more than 5 billion yuan. At present, the exhibition infrastructure in Changsha is becoming more and more perfect, with four modern and standardized exhibition venues, with a total construction area of 210.9 million square meters and an indoor exhibition area of10.29 million square meters, with a total of 49,665,438 standard booths. The number of exhibition halls and the area of indoor exhibition halls rank fourth and sixth in China respectively, and it has the hardware capability to undertake various exhibition projects within 2,000 standard booths and more than 654.38+10,000 professional visitors. Successfully held a large number of exhibition activities, such as the National Sugar and Liquor Fair, the National Coal Fair, the China Golden Eagle TV Art Festival and the Fifth National City Games. The rapid development of MICE tourism in Changsha promotes the rapid expansion of MICE tourism market, which is followed by a large demand for MICE tourism talents. Therefore, it is imperative to strengthen the cultivation of mice tourism professionals.

(2) The demand for professionals in MICE tourism.

MICE tourism is a practical work. Without systematic theoretical guidance and specialized education, it is difficult for ordinary people to complete it smoothly. With the development of MICE tourism and the intensification of competition, the degree of specialization and cooperation is constantly enhanced, and the professional quality of talents is also higher. We need a high-quality professional exhibition team, who is good at market development, planning and management, and can provide related services. Therefore, cultivating high-quality professional exhibition talents is the key to develop Hunan exhibition tourism.

(C) the necessity of integrating educational resources.

MICE tourism is a new industry, and the cultivation of professionals in this field can fill the gap in this field. The rapid development of education in China, especially the expansion of higher education, vocational and technical education and adult education, has made important contributions to China's economic construction and industrial development. However, with the development of emerging industries, many new disciplines need to be created. The development of exhibition education can enrich the professional connotation of management discipline, create new disciplines, optimize the discipline structure, integrate educational resources and majors, enhance the strength of running a school, improve the social and economic benefits of running a school, and make education more

Third, the current situation of mice tourism education in Hunan

In the final analysis, the competition of MICE tourism is the competition of talents. The professional skills and management level of tourism professionals in Hunan MICE are far from the requirements of MICE tourism, and there is a considerable gap in the overall quality of exhibition organizers, exhibition managers, construction workers and employees who provide other services for exhibitions. So far, there are no graduates majoring in exhibition in Hunan, and most of the managers of exhibition companies have become monks halfway and have not received systematic and comprehensive professional education. This reality has become a major factor restricting the development of MICE tourism in this province. At the same time, the marketing and operation of MICE tourism lack systematic scientific knowledge support, which greatly reduces the efficiency of MICE and makes it difficult to give full play to Hunan's unique advantages in tourism resources.

At present, many colleges and universities in Hunan offer tourism management majors, but not many schools offer mice tourism courses, few schools specialize in training mice tourism professionals, and even fewer mice professional training institutions. As a result, there is a serious shortage of mice tourism talents in our province, and the professional quality of employees is generally low, the professional structure is incomplete and the distribution of talents is uneven. In particular, there is still a considerable gap between the training of exhibition talents and international standards and the close connection with the industry. Mainly in the following aspects:

First, the education system has not yet formed.

Due to the late start, small scale and serious lag in academic education and training, China has not yet formed an education system from secondary vocational education to junior college, undergraduate, master and doctor.

Second, the goal of talent training is unknown.

MICE tourism is a special comprehensive service trade industry, but colleges and universities have not yet formed a * * * understanding of the types and structure of talents needed for its development, which is reflected in the controversy over the classification of MICE talents, thus affecting the formulation of talent training objectives.

Third, the curriculum system has not yet been established.

As the exhibition discipline has not yet been formed, its research objects and methods have not yet been established, which has led to the exploration of curriculum setting, teaching material construction and curriculum system.

Fourth, the construction of high-quality professional teachers has not yet formed.

There is a lack of authoritative masters at present. Most teachers of MICE tourism are marketing teachers. They either know little about the theory and practice of exhibition talents training, or they are biased towards theory and divorced from practice.

Happily, now we have realized the seriousness of the problem and started to take many measures to change this phenomenon. The author understands that Changsha Convention and Exhibition Association, in view of the shortage of convention and exhibition professionals in Changsha, has included the training of convention and exhibition professionals in its work plan, trained professionals in the convention and exhibition industry and improved the quality of employees to meet the demand of convention and exhibition tourism for professionals. With the attention of the government and organizations, we need the joint efforts of colleagues from all walks of life, especially in the education sector, to push Hunan MICE tourism education to a new level.

Fourth, suggestions on developing mice tourism education in Hunan

(A) update the concept, attach importance to the exhibition tourism education.

At present, some people don't realize the importance of professional knowledge. They think that the exhibition mainly depends on practice, and it doesn't matter whether there is theory or not. They don't need to spend time and energy studying in class, just learn by doing, and so on. To run MICE tourism education well, we must first overcome this deviation in concept and understanding. We must clearly realize that exhibition is a science and a new interdisciplinary subject, which combines the knowledge of many disciplines and has its own knowledge system and subject characteristics. This requires us to develop the education of mice tourism in Hunan, just like other majors, and cultivate the specialized talents needed by mice tourism in Hunan.

(B) clear objectives, improve the education system of mice tourism.

According to the demand analysis of mice tourism management talents, improve the mice tourism education system. Drawing on the successful experience at home and abroad, combined with the actual situation in Hunan, it has formed five levels: vocational training, secondary vocational education, higher vocational education, undergraduate education and postgraduate education. So far, only East China Normal University and Shanghai Normal University have offered the course of exhibition economic management in postgraduate education. In terms of vocational training, only Shanghai has just introduced the certificate examination of exhibition manager of the American International Association for Exhibition Management and started to implement the training program of "exhibition planning and practice", but it is still in the exploratory stage.

Hunan MICE tourism has developed rapidly, but MICE tourism education has just started. Hunan University, Hunan Normal University, Xiangtan University and other universities in Hunan all have tourism management majors, but none of them have real mice tourism majors. Based on this situation, it is suggested that the historical mission of exhibition education should be entrusted to universities in Hunan Province, such as Hunan University, Hunan Normal University, Xiangtan University and other universities with good school conditions. Tourism colleges and universities should set up exhibition major or exhibition management courses to form a benign training structure of Hunan exhibition tourism talents and cultivate a large number of exhibition tourism education talents.

(C) Market-oriented, try the order-based education model.

Exhibition tourism talents need strong practical ability. Therefore, students should receive training in school so that they can adapt to the work of MICE tourism better and faster after graduation. On June 5438+1October 65438+February, 2006, some experts put forward the idea of order-based teaching at the symposium on exhibition education and employment recommendation in China. That is, the school and several enterprises agree on the number and direction of training students and place orders directly.

Hunan MICE tourism education can learn from this model, try order-based education, strengthen the alliance between schools and MICE tourism enterprises, accurately grasp the market demand, clarify the direction of talent training according to the requirements of employers for talents, scientifically set courses, formulate practical teaching plans, and pay attention to the practicality and flexibility of teaching. Taking cooperative enterprises as practice bases, students can apply what they have learned and speed up the training process of mice tourism talents. This not only cultivates specialized talents to meet the needs of mice tourism market, but also provides effective guarantee for students' employment.

(4) Industry-University-Research integration, strengthen the construction of teachers.

Industry-University-Research integration refers to the integration of teaching, business services and scientific research. Professional teachers implement a multiple identity system, that is, they are both teachers and managers. In the classroom teaching of the school, he is a teacher, and when providing services to the society, he is the manager of a tourism exhibition enterprise.

To strengthen the training of exhibition talents, we must first have a strong teaching staff. As a comprehensive and practical tourism exhibition major, the overall professional quality of the teaching staff needs to be strengthened. On the one hand, it is manifested in the lack of practice, and most teachers have no practical experience in tourism exhibition operation; On the other hand, most of them become monks halfway, and their theoretical level is not very strong, and their system is not very strong. Teachers' practical experience in social specialty is not rich, so it is inevitable that theory will be divorced from reality in teaching, and the trained students will not meet the requirements of social posts. For the teaching of tourism exhibition specialty, in order to improve the teaching effect and realize the goal of talent training, it is necessary to adjust the knowledge structure of teachers, especially to enrich practical experience and strengthen practical skills through the integration of Industry-University-Research, so as to improve the overall level of teachers as soon as possible and meet the needs of professional teaching.

Conclusion: 2 1 century is the century of rapid development of convention and exhibition industry, so we should seize the opportunity to develop local convention and exhibition tourism. MICE tourism talents are the primary problem in the development of MICE tourism in Hunan. The core talents of exhibition can be solved by introducing talents, and the auxiliary talents and supporting talents of exhibition can only be solved by developing vocational education in the local area. Therefore, only by linking schools with mice tourism enterprises and working hard on curriculum and academic education can we be flexible, targeted and promote the healthy development of mice tourism in Hunan. I believe that with the joint efforts of colleagues from all walks of life, Hunan MICE tourism education will reach a new height.