Recently, we learned from China Scholarship Council that the International Cooperative Cultivation Project for Interdisciplinary Tourism Talents declared by the College of Tourism and Service Management has been approved.

Based on the “2 + 2” joint cultivation project for double doctoral degrees launched by the College of Tourism and Service Management together with the University of Glasgow and the “3 + 1” joint cultivation project for bachelor and master degrees launched by the College of Tourism and Service Management together with the University of Surrey, this project aims to cultivate international high-end research-oriented innovative “tourism +” talents for such fields as tourism destination management, big data and tourism management engineering, collaborative tourism innovation and innovation management, new tourism format research, tourism education innovation and knowledge management, so as to better serve the strategic needs of the “Belt and Road” initiative and global tourism development.

The implementation period of this project is three years, during which excellent doctoral students will be dispatched to the two universities for learning and exchanges for a period of 2- 4 years annually. These students will be jointly instructed by tutors of the both universities, with their round-trip transportation and basic living needs being funded by China Scholarship Council. The dispatched doctoral students will form a talent cultivation echelon together with their guiding teachers, young backbone teachers, post-doctoral researchers and postgraduates.

Since its establishment in 2010, the College of Tourism and Service Management has determined the international talent cultivation strategy. It has built platforms for teacher & student exchanges and transitional researches successively with many well-known tourism colleges and universities such as the University of Glasgow, University of Surrey, University of Nottingham, Texas A&M University, University of Central Florida, Temple University, University of South Carolina, University of South Florida, Oklahoma State University, Washington State University, University of Illinois, Universitat de les Illes Balears and Macao Institute For Tourism Studies. Meanwhile, the College of Tourism and Service Management has signed agreements with Cheju Halla University in South Korea and the Mexican Government respectively for a joint cultivation project and a commissioned cultivation project titled “Studying abroad in Nankai University”.

In addition, the College of Tourism and Service Management has successively joined several world renowned academic communities and international tourism organizations such as the United Nations World Tourism Organisation (UNWTO) Knowledge Network, World Tourism Alliance (WTA), Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA), China-ASEAN Tourism Education Alliance, International Council on Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Education (ICHRIE), Council for Hospitality Management Education (CHME), Council for Australasian Tourism and Hospitality Education (CAUTHE), Global Tourism Research Alliance in Tourism (GReAT), International Society of Travel and Tourism Educators (ISTTE), International Federation for Information Technology and Travel & Tourism (IFITT) and Travel and Tourism Research Association (TTRA), in hope of expanding exchange channels for its teachers and students. In 2019, the College of Tourism and Service Management took the lead in completing the international exchange and cooperation indicators regarding “double first-class” construction among all relevant colleges of Nankai University, with the international exchange ratio of its undergraduates and postgraduates respectively reaching 53.33% and 41.52%. In 2020, to implement the spirits of the National Conference on Educational Foreign Affairs held by the Ministry of Education, the College of Tourism and Service Management will, relying on the “2 + 2” joint cultivation project for undergraduates launched together with Cheju Halla University and the commissioned cultivation project for postgraduates launched together with the Mexican Government, further increase the enrollment of international students and accelerate and expand the opening-up of education in the new era.