The Institute for Tourism Studies (IFT) 2015/16 Degree Programme Student Orientation Ceremony was held at the end of August. This year, 374 freshmen were admitted, 85 per cent of whom are local students. According to Institute president Fanny Vong, the school's culinary arts management module, its evening courses and its accredited professional programmes were the most popular offerings. She said she wished to admit more students to those curricula, which she believes is possible due to more hardware and equipment made available by the newly acquired East Asia Hall located on the former campus of the University of Macau in Taipa.

She said that around 100 students had enrolled for a Bachelor's degree in 1995. Today, IFT students had increased 13-fold with 1,600 undergraduates. It has fostered over 6,000 graduates for a Bachelor's or Advanced Diploma, while every year an average 20,000 people join the evening courses and the accredited professional programmes.

The school's president said that nine to ten floors of the East Asia Hall will be used as dormitories to accommodate the needs of local and overseas students. The other floors will be used as classrooms, offices or spaces for students. Given their popularity, Culinary Arts Management and evening classes are to be expanded by three or four more classes.

IFT 20^th Anniversary Celebratory Events

In recognition of its 20^th anniversary this year, IFT is holding a series of celebratory events including 'Tourism 20:20 - An international symposium on the past and future of tourism' (for details please check http://itrc.ift.edu.mo/tourism-2020) on 12^th October in the IFT Taipa Campus. Many experts from international tourism organizations and the academic world will look back on the past 20 years of tourism growth in the context of rapid globalization and integration, technological advances, climate change, the advent of low-cost travel and accommodation, and more open visa policies as a few of the great changes shaping travel. Looking forward to the next two decades, speakers will address the lessons learned, how the industry is coping with change, and the opportunities and challenges ahead.