Dear readers,

I spent a few days in Tirana, the capital of Albania, last week. What pleasantly surprised me during this trip was the dynamic backdrop of the city as a whole, and the positive can-do attitude of the colleagues we joined for our CTW Chinese Tourism Welcome training session. One of the stories shared during my short stay in the beautiful city is perhaps too good not to be shared. Recently, a Chinese couple visited Albania, requesting a truly authentic Albanian experience, beyond sightseeing. The guide simply took them to the mountain village where his grandmother lives, where they spent a nice day cooking and eating local dishes together. To complete the true homestay experience, the guide’s grandmother even requested that the Chinese guests do the dishes after their meal! The Chinese guests happily obliged and greatly appreciated the intimacy of the experience, remarking that they seldom had the opportunity to do so back home. The Chinese guests then shared this interesting anecdote with their friends back home in China on WeChat, concluding the simple yet unique experience.

While face-to-face trainings are always a pleasure to conduct, the world is too big and the specific information needed for different branches of the tourism, hospitality, and retail industry too diverse to be condensed and covered into a single weekend. Furthermore, the best up-to-date information arguably still comes from the practitioners themselves and Best Practice Examples. That’s why COTRI has developed the China Tourism Training (CTT) programme, which offers those specific advantages to all and can be used by participants all over the world at any given time.

This week, we were also proud to receive a message from Dr. Mario Hardy, CEO of PATA Pacific Asia Travel Association, commending the work we have done on the CTT programme in cooperation with the Hong Kong Polytechnic University School of Hotel and Tourism management.

To get an impression of the programme, we have released a new introductory video on YouTube, covering the main features and benefits of CTT, which can be accessed at this link https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ANH4DXeEtfQ&t=457s. In the upcoming days, we look forward to sharing our online manual on the functionalities of CTT – we will keep you updated on our website http://china-outbound.com.

Have a lovely week ahead!

For the COTRI WEEKLY Team

Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Georg Arlt

Archive >>