In December 2013, with the aim of understanding how experiential learning is practiced in Taiwan’s tertiary education, four academic staff members at FHTM, Dr. Zhang Meng, Dr. Tang Juan, Dr. Yan Libo and Dr. Gao Bo paid an official academic visit to four universities in Taiwan, including both public and private, all of which have tourism and hospitality programs.
This academic tour consisted of two parts. One was academic meetings with the major leaders of tourism and leisure related faculties, topics of which mainly focused on their program construction, staff recruitment and training as well as students’ hands-on skill training. The other part was visits to their experiential-learning facilities, which is believed to be the indispensible academic practice in cultivation of students’ industry-ready skills. All their facilities made an unforgettable and vivid showcase for experiential learning, including their western kitchens, Chinese kitchens, travel agencies, aromatic sensory training classrooms, guest houses, centers for Gaming and Entertainment Education, aviation demonstration rooms, and so on.
This impressive academic tour in Taiwan has been quite inspirational for the development of the hospitality and tourism programs at FHTM on experiential learning. It is hoped that with this better mutual understanding, more collaboration could be carried out in the near future in forms of student exchange and research cooperation.
