1. Guilin Institute of Tourism (GLIT) Introduction
GLIT was founded in 1985 when there were few public higher learning institutions of this kind across China. From the outset, the Board of GLIT gave importance to seeking national and international links in the process of self-development. The present landscape of GLIT is defined by two campuses located in the downtown (Canluan) and uptown (Yanshan) districts and covering 1885 mu (an equivalent of 1,250,000 square meters). With its geological expansion, GLIT has become not only one of the higher learning institutions of tourism in China who have joined to form a union called the Five-Star League but also the affiliate members of the UNWTO and PATA who have given their substantial support.
It is noteworthy that in Voting for the Top Ten Domestic Higher Learning Institutions of Tourism Recognized by the Hotel Industry, a campaign initiated by the publisher of a prestige magazine entitled Jiu Dian Ren (The Hotel Industry Professionals), GLIT was proud of leading the other Chinese counterparts in votes.
Considering its status, the National Tourism Administration (NTA) has authoritized GLIT to be the Guangxi Center of Educating and Training Tourism Professionals from ASEAN.
There are 12 academic divisions in GLIT. They are the Tourism and Leisure Management Department, Hotel Management Department, Tourism Foreign Language Department, Tour Guide Department, Department of Commerce, Visual Art Department, Performance Art Department, Tourism Transport and Services Department, Social Sciences Department and TESOL Department and the School of Continuous Learning and School of International Education and Exchange. 41 programs with 57 professional orientations in line with the main aspects of tourism are offered to 9,000 strong full-time students hailing from the different parts of China and ASEAN.
At the heart of the departments and schools is the faculty team. It is made up of 529 full-time teachers. Of them are 40 professors, 180 associate professors, 30 teachers who have been conferred or are to be conferred PhD degrees, members of the national vocational education and training supervision boards, leading teachers of Guangxi province, and a winner of the Fu Lei French Translation Award. To strengthen the academic prowess, GLIT invites preeminent researchers in certain fields and elites from certain industries to give lectures and long-contract jobs are available for qualified experts from other regions and countries; at the same time, its own full time teachers are funded when they go abroad for further learning or other academic activities, accounting for 40%. 50% of the full-time teachers have acquired double qualifications (note: double-qualification teachers hereby refer to those who were seniors with an industry before teaching in a vocational school or who hold industrial certificates through training and test while teaching) or have an industrial experience in one way or another.
In addition to the strength of its faculty team, GLIT takes pride in its creative integration of teaching and practice, international collaboration and character cultivation. This boosts the academic achievements: 6 programs have passed the UNWTO TedQual certification; 16 programs have respectively been conferred the titles of Pilot Vocational Program at National Level, Top Quality Program in Guangxi Province and High Quality Program in Guangxi Province; 2 courses have been conferred the title of Model Course at National Level and 15 courses the title of Model Course in Guangxi Province; 1 teaching reform project has been awarded the Second Prize of China and 8 teaching reform projects the Commendation Prize; and there are 12 state-funded or province-funded Model Practice Bases on campus.
These achievements lay a solid foundation in sustaining education and training at a high level. As the statistics show, GLIT students have won more prizes than other Chinese counterparts in nation-wide vocational skills contests or other important competitions; 300 strong GLIT students have been accepted as interns or directly employed by the tourism businesses in America, the United Arab Emirates, Canada, Japan, and France; most of GLIT graduates are working in the domestic or foreign tourism businesses, their performance meeting the requirements of different positions; GLIT has, by all standards, led the other Chinese counterparts in the rate of employment and the job suitability for graduates. This explains why, for 10 consecutive years, GLIT has been singled out by the Department for Education in Guangxi province as a role model in this respect for other schools to learn from.
GLIT's presence has been recognized by the Vocational College Professional Education and Training Supervision Board under the Ministry of Education. Unaimously GLIT has been ranked as excellent.
Together with education and training, research is put by GLIT equally on top of the work agenda. GLIT has set up two centers on campus: Guangxi Tourism Research Center and Guilv Tourism Planning Center. The two centers aim to provide consulting services. GLIT has played a key role in more than 30 state-funded or province-funded social science or other research projects and some of projects have been initiated with a view to advising on multi-billion-yuan-RMB investments. Together with more than 10 city- or county-level entities within or without Guangxi province, GLIT has worked on planning tourism development, training tourism professionals and designing local tourism handicrafts as well as on drafting relevant criteria or standards. The total of the projects of this kind surpasses 50.
It is worthy of mentioning that GLIT journal Tourism Forum is regarded as a window of the national and international researches on tourism. With its impact on the academic community, Tourism Forum has been ranked as one of the top 10 academic journals of higher learning institutions in Guangxi province for years in row. What is more important, it was voted to be one of the most world-influential Chinese academic journal in 2012.
GLIT has not confined itself to China but tried every means to extend and broaden its horizon. It has established links with 15 counterparts in America and Canada. As many as 170 wolrd-class leisure and hotel businesses like the Burj Al-Arab Hotel in Dubai and Emirates Palace Hotel in Abu Dhab have gone into partnership with GLIT. The international character of GLIT has grown strong. This has attracted the attention of dignitaries like Russian Vice Prime Minister and UNWTO Secretary-Generals. They visited GLIT and addressed its faculty and students. GLIT is to them so impressive and commendable an academic institution with pragmatic ambience.
GLIT is committed to assisting GMS as well as ASEAN countries in their tourism development. Under the auspieces of the Asia Development Bank, GLIT has designed a series of short-term courses. They have been delivered largely by GLIT teachers to 10 batches of senior tourism professionals from Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia.
GLIT is designated by NTA as the first tourism education and training base in the south-western China. On campus there are national vocational skills assessment centers. The centers are authorised to issue as many as 54 categories of certificates to those who have passed the assessment tests. Given the circumstances, GLIT is responsible for training department managers and general managers from hotels and travel agencies as well as other tourism professionals from different parts of China. The total of the trainees has surpassed 50,000.
On-campus extra-curricular activities are diverse. Different clubs have their own schedules. They organize foreign language play carnivals, tour guide contests, etiquette shows and GLIT forums. The baseball and softball clubs in particular are noteworthy because they have brought back 8 championship trophies from the national baseball and softball tournaments. They are best known for their participation in the 12th National Games on behalf of Guangxi province.
To sum up, whatever GLIT has been working hard at is for the purpose of building itself into a leading school with its own characteristics which provides (more) knowledgable, (more) skillful and (more) competent professionals for the tourism industry. To achieve the goal, GLIT has to often rectify the past, enhance the present and envision the future. At the same time, many other factors must be taken into consideration such as the state and provincial development strategies, especially the Guilin development strategy between 2012 and 2020. Only by doing so can GLIT really claim to be culture-distinctive, industry-predominent, nation-leading and world-renowned, one day in the near future .
2. Guilin Institute of Tourism (GLIT) Review
"People here are very friendly to us and my Chinese has improved a lot." -Denny
3. Guilin Institute of Tourism (GLIT) Teaching quality
-A key construction university of National Tourism Administration.
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