Hotel Management and Digital Operation
This program, founded in 1979, is the first program in China to foster professionals at the diploma level in hotel management. In 2008, it was the first in China to be selected as a national demonstrative key program of higher vocational colleges. In 2011, it became the first demonstrative hospitality program of higher vocational colleges in China. In 2017, the program was named by the Ministry of Education and the former National Tourism Administration as a “national demonstrative program of tourism in vocational education and a demonstrative base for school-company cooperation on vocational education in tourism”. In 2019, the program was approved by the Ministry of Education as a productive training base for hotel management program under school-company cooperation and a smart hotel business training base under school-company cooperation. In the same year, it was approved for construction as one of the first batch of first-rate programs in Shanghai. In 2021, as required by the Ministry of Education, the hotel management program was officially re-named as “hotel management and digital operation program”. At the end of 2021, it was approved by Shanghai Municipal Education Commission for construction as one of the first batch of first-rate program clusters. In 2023, it passed the quality accreditation by UN Tourism Tequal and was granted the longest certification period of 4 years.
This program boasts a strong faculty, comprising 24 professional teachers, including 4 full professors and 6 associate professors, including 1 state-level famous teacher, 1 famous teacher selected at the 1st national tourism educator selections, 1 state-level hotel star rater, 2 Shanghai hotel star raters, 2 Shanghai famous teachers and 2 recipients of Shanghai educational excellence award. This program has one state-level teaching team, 1 state-level awarded course, 2 Shanghai awarded courses, 3 prioritized courses of Shanghai, and 3 Shanghai teaching teams, who won several teaching achievement awards at the municipal level. Nearly half of teachers in this program have been recognized as qualified for professional titles and have work or practical experience in hotel industry and tourism-related industries. With a reasonable learning-origin structure, this program is a hotel management program famous among Chinese tourism schools, staffed with an outstanding teaching team that comprises full-time and part-time teachers well experienced in theory and industry practice.
This program is equipped with a domestically leading on-campus training base and maintains rewarding cooperative relationships with famous hotel groups and tourism companies both at home and abroad, resulting in an international delivery model that places equal emphasis on occupational capabilities and humanistic literacy, i.e., emphasizing the occupational, practical and open nature of teaching activities, applying digital tools in course delivery and carrying out a series of practical teaching activities involving real scenarios and actual operations and featuring thematic operations, and achieving an end-to-end IT-enabled management model for teaching management and implementation, all in line with professional competency requirements of various major jobs in hotel operation and fitting into the current trends of hotel operations digitalization. This aims at fostering student ability to utilize various digital tools and intelligent hotel equipment and to conduct basic analysis, processing and application of data in order for students to become hotel operation and management professionals with digital thinking, desirable humanistic literacy, professional ethics and consciousness of innovation.
Since its inception in 1979, this program has been oriented towards industry demands and placing equal emphasis on professional competency and humanistic literacy of students, with a large number of outstanding practitioners fostered for China’s hospitality industry. Those industry practitioners include senior executives with internationally-renowned hotel groups, leading figures of domestically famous hotel groups, and a large number of middle and senior hotel executives who have been graduated from this program in the past ten years. These outstanding graduates became the most attractive calling card for the School’s hotel management program in China’s hotel education sector.
This program has good teaching environments, advanced teaching and training facilities and modern means of teaching. The existing hotel business training venues are productive hands-on training and teaching spaces in actual operation. The practice teaching venues mainly include Sea Sense Hotel and hotel business training center. Of them, the hotel business training center consists of Western restaurant, café, bartending training room, tea art training room, hotel room training classroom, hotel operation and management training room and hotel information management system training room. With this training spaces, this program is enabled to conducted various thematic operation activities, resulting in a shift of practice teaching mode driven by actual business operations
The program works with 66 companies on internship arrangements, most being international hotel management groups such as Marriott, Intercontinental, Jin Jiang International, Hilton and Hyatt
Main courses: introduction to hospitality industry, hotel operation and management, consumer psychology, business communication, tourism and hotel e-commerce, service operation management, digital hotel marketing, application of digital engineering technology for hotels, hotel management information system practices, hotel human resources management, hotel financial management practice, food and wine, lobby and hotel room operation management practice, restaurant operation and management, banquet and convention planning practice, tea culture and appreciation, coffee culture and making, and hotel architectural aesthetics, etc.
Employment orientations: famous hotel chains, high-end clubs, high-end restaurant chains, luxury cruise, high-end guesthouses, online hotel booking companies and luxury companies.
Hotel Management and Digital Operation (Sino-Canada cooperation program)
This program is a joint operation between Shanghai Institute of Tourism and George Brown College (“Canadian side”) established in 2017. George Brown College, founded in 1967, is one of the largest public colleges in Canada, whose hospitality school is the largest tourism and hospitality college in Canada, maintaining rewarding educational cooperation with world-class hospitality groups such as Fairmont Hotels & Resorts, Four Seasons Hotels and Resorts and Marriott Hotels. Therefore, the faulty is best-in-class and all professional teachers have rich industry experience, thus ensuring professionalism of teaching practices.
This program has a curriculum jointly formulated by both sides, complete with hotel management courses delivered by Canadian senior lecturers and supported by a series of courses called “Hospitality English” with the characteristics of international hotel management program and delivered by highly qualified ESL teachers from the Canadian side as enhanced English language training for students.
Through three years of study, students will receive diploma of ordinary institutions of higher learning issued by SIT and a certificate of completion of George Brown College Hospitality School issued from the Canadian side. Students eligible for continued education can be admitted to the hotel management program of George Brown College (Bachelor’s degree) for the fourth year of study, whereupon successful students will receive certificate of Bachelor’s degree in hotel management issued from George Brown College.
This program emphasizes the service awareness, practical ability and operating skills of students, particularly fosters humanistic literacy and critical thinking ability of students, focuses on solidifying the fundamental management theory and comprehensive business thinking ability of students, pays great attention to fostering students’ international vision and enhances their potential of promotion and development in the industry. During their time on campus, students in this program are even offered chances to study as exchange students at famous tourism colleges in Canada, the US and Europe and engage in internships at local high-end hotels or famous tourist resorts.
Main courses: courses from the Chinese side (hotel human resources management, hotel marketing, hotel financial management, catering operation and management, introduction to management, etc), courses from the Canadian side (introduction to international hospitality industry, hotel lobby and room management, customer service management, consumer behavior, business communication, wine appreciation, bartending, preliminary, intermediate and advanced hospitality English, etc), courses under Sino-Canada cooperation and introduced (accounting basics, management accounting, cross-culture management, strategic revenue management, events management, etc).
Employment orientations: famous hotel groups, global famous theme parks, hotel management consultancies, and foreign-funded companies.
Catering Intelligent Management
This program, started by the School in 2009, aims at fostering catering industry practitioners who have desirable professional ethics and accomplishment and are conscious and able to innovate. This program fosters highly competent skilled professionals who are fully fledged in all aspects, knowledgeable about science, culture, catering culture, catering production and services, use of intelligent equipment and catering marketing, capable of catering production management, store operation management, catering service and banquet design, are craftsmanship-minded and information-literate, capable of intelligent catering operation and management, restaurant design and operation, online catering marketing and social-media marketing, catering product design and development, catering production and quality control, and able to engage in catering production and quality management, restaurant service and management and digital catering operation and management for occupational job clusters such as catering production management, restaurant service and catering operation management, etc.
This program is delivered by full-time teachers with a reasonable structural proportion of intermediate and senior professional titles, all qualified as professionally-titled teachers. Full-time teachers all have work or practical experience in hotel, catering and tourism-related industries. Meanwhile, catering innovator studios featuring high degree of industry-education integration have been built in place, along with innovation and entrepreneurship contests, professional competitions among disciplines and catering industry competitions, all geared towards to forming an integrated mechanism of “driving education, learning and research through competition”. Long-term partnerships have been established with famous international hotel groups, domestic famous restaurant chains and many overseas colleges, so that students are assigned to pursue corporate internship and training opportunities and overseas academic visit and exchange.
This program boasts well-established teaching and practice facilities, including first-rate training restaurants, bars, café, flower and tea art training room and culinary training room, where students are encouraged to train and foster their operating skills and service management capabilities. Through practice courses such as productive training, teaching training week, professional internship, on-the-job internship and graduation project, students are enable to understand the startup process of restaurants, including site selection and property requirements, catering product design requirements, raw materials purchase and storage requirements, production marketing and cost accounting, for the purposes of fully training students in occupational capabilities on campus.
Main courses: catering service techniques and skills, catering service psychology, restaurant and bar operation and management, feast design and banquet organizing, catering management practice, catering marketing, food nutrition and hygienic safety, nutritious catering and food therapy, appreciation of Chinese and Western cuisines, and research on emerging forms of catering business, etc.
Employment orientations: intelligent catering operation and management, catering production and product development, online catering marketing, international and domestic high-end restaurant chains, catering project planning and management, catering business cost management, catering food safety management, major catering companies, high-end clubs, catering and delivery services, nutritious catering services, café chains, theme restaurants and digital restaurants.
Culinary Arts and Nutrition
Established in 1985, the program of culinary arts and nutrition is one of the oldest culinary programs established in China, and has become a domestically leading vocational education program of its kind after over 30 years of development, playing a considerable demonstrative and diffusive role nationwide. Currently, the program is one of the first-rate program offered by higher vocational colleges in Shanghai (2019), and one of high-level program clusters pursued in Shanghai (2022), approved as one of several key programs for education reform and construction, and a pilot program of higher vocational education and teaching by the Ministry of Education (2002), and a national demonstrative key program of higher vocational colleges (2008); a key program under Shanghai’s 085 Program (2011); one of the first batch of pilot programs for penetration through secondary and higher vocational educations in Shanghai (2011); and one of the first batch of pilot programs of modern apprenticeship designated by the Ministry of Education (2016). Over the past years, while studying and exploring possible reforms of education and teaching practices, this program won the first and second prizes for teaching excellence in Shanghai three times in a row (in 2009, 2013, 2017 and 2021), successfully made 2 awarded courses of Shanghai, one master studio, one famous teacher studio and one innovative teaching team in Shanghai, as well as one program pursued with resource pool of higher vocational colleges in Shanghai. It is now a corporate member of China Cuisine Association, deputy director general of China Association of Business Professionals, vice chairman of Shanghai Culinary and Catering Industry Association and secretary general of Shanghai Food Culture Society.
Currently, the program is delivered by a team of professionally-titled teachers working full or part time, who are theoretically solid and well experienced in industry practice, including 5 full-time teachers, all of whom have Master’s degree or above, including 1 professor, 2 associate professors, 4 state-level senior technologists, and 4 professional evaluators at the national, provincial and municipal level. Of them, there are one famous higher vocational educator at the city level and one famous teacher at the city level, 2 Chinese culinary masters, 1 senior judge of the National Chinese Cuisine Vocational Qualification Committee, and one deputy secretary general of Shanghai Nutritious Diet Committee. All part-time teachers are industry masters and leading figures with senior technical title, such as inheritor of Shanghai cuisine Zhou Yuanchang, founder of innovative fusion cuisine Qian Yibin and famous chef of Shanghai cuisine Shen Wei, while the team building efforts always maintain a development pattern of industry iteration driven by innovation that leads the industry evolution and upgrading.
Main courses offered are introduction to culinary arts, purchase and management of culinary ingredients, Chinese culinary arts, pastry arts, Chinese culinary skills, Chinese pastry arts, dietary nutrition and catering, catering food safety and control, food sculpture, cold dish making, famous Chinese cuisine making, Western culinary arts, innovative making of Chinese cuisine, modern catering management, catering cost control, catering marketing, kitchen management, feast design and banquet organizing, catering service, culinary chemistry, food nutrition and hygiene, food therapy and medicated diet, Chinese and Western dietary cultures and catering English, etc.
At present, this program has 262 active students, who are mainly fostered in 3-year ordinary diploma program “3+2” secondary and higher vocational education program, supported by innovative teaching practices of multi-type and diversified vocational education in response to the national higher vocational college enrollment expansion plan. Students in this program won many prizes, such as the first prize (in 2014), second prize (in 2015, 2021 and 2022), and third prize (in 2023) at the national vocational skills contest in the category of cooking (high vocational schools), the first prize at Yangtze River Delta Region Cooking Skills Contest (in 2019), special gold prize at the national prepared dish tournament (in 2023) and the second prize at Shanghai nutritious caterer contest (in 2022). This program delivers a large number of outstanding graduates to the culinary industry each year, providing high-quality practitioners and management professionals to major star-rated hotels and catering businesses, as well as high-quality full-time teachers for secondary vocational education.
This program initiated the establishment of Maxim’s Group Catering Industry College and set up 1 national vocational skills appraisal station, Shanghai-styled catering creative center, culinary education research center, creative cuisine lab and 2 specialized training and teaching sites in-house in collaboration with secondary vocational colleges.
In line with its idea of collaborative development, this program maintains extensive culinary and catering cultural and academic exchanges with Sichuan Tourism University, Yangzhou University, Guilin Tourism University, Harbin University of Commerce and Tourism College of Zhejiang China, which gradually led to a national community of culinary culture development. Meanwhile, the program works with Macau University of Tourism and National Kaohsiung University of Hospitality And Tourism to build an Asian platform for joint innovation in Chinese cuisine, whereby exchanges and co-building events such as exchange visit and experience among teachers and students take place each year.
Employment orientations: tourism and food industries, hospitality and catering industries, culinary education industry, restaurant chains and related industries.
Western Culinary Arts
This program is a characteristic program started by the School in 2008, as the earliest Western food program ever offered in the country. In 2015, this program ranked first among Western culinary arts program in the national rankings of program, recognized as a national demonstrative program, a high-level characteristic program under Shanghai’s 085 Program, a first-rate program in Shanghai in 2019 and a recipient of the first prize for teaching excellence in Shanghai in 2022.
This program aims at fostering professionals with high humanistic literacy and strong technology development and management capabilities.
Professional teachers in this program are all Class-A teachers with overseas study experience, including 5 Chinese chefs of Western cuisine, 8 senior lecturers, 1 city-level awarded course, 12 state-level textbooks and 3 teachers under the 10,000 tourism professionals plan of the former National Tourism Administration.
This program is delivered using domestically leading on-campus training and experiment base and off-campus professional internship base, where students are encouraged to develop solid Western culinary skills, English proficiency, management ability and cross-culture interpersonal skills. This program is dedicated to pursuing international approach to school running, actively exploring possible cooperation with foreign peers and companies, and constantly expanding the overseas training and exchange study opportunities and the size of overseas employment.
Main courses: Western cold dish craft, Western hot dish craft, Western dessert craft, bakery arts, food technology research, innovative design of dishes and desserts, modern catering management, kitchen management, culinary English, food hygiene and safety, food nutrition and catering, banquet design practice, etc.
Employment orientations: tourism and food industries, hotel and catering industries, food industry, education industry, chain enterprise and relevant industries.
Wine Culture and Marketing
This program is one of 9 programs added to the Category of Programs of Higher Vocational Education offered by Ordinary Institutions of Higher Learning in 2019. It is oriented towards marketing jobs on the wine market side which are much needed, technically professional and socially recognized, typified by sommelier.
This program aims at fostering interdisciplinary management professionals who are adept at wine appreciation and sommelier service skills, proficient in restaurant operation and wine sales channel management, literate in digital information and capable of international communications. The course system further fosters student knowledge about wines and ability to provide exquisite beverage services, expanding students’ understanding of wine brand operations and market channel management. Students are gradually fostered to become persons in charge of wine sales outlets or high-end catering organizations who can effectively make businesses profitable through wine product sales and promotion and contribute to the spread of corporate culture.
This program adopts a talent cultivation concept of “equal emphasis on theory and practice”, characterized remarkably by practice teaching being benchmarked against job requirements. It integrates occupational certification requirements into courses to make students more capable to obtain “both diploma and vocational certificate”. It makes full use of teaching and training venues and equipment to ensure students will acquire skills efficiently and develop a good mindset of industry involvement while studying on campus. Students are made more professionally competitive for job openings with “strong skills+ good state of mind”, so that they can both remain competent for present jobs and prepare themselves for future career moves.
Main courses: food and wine, basic knowledge of wines, wine appreciation and sommelier service, grape planting and wine making, wine culture and customs, wine marketing and trade, catering operation and management, banquet and conference planning, coffee culture and making, bar operation and management, restaurant design, decoration and layout, basic accounting, social media marketing, service sector revenue management.
Employment orientations: professional sommelier, wine appreciator, beverage manager of high-star-rated hotels, high-end restaurant manager, chateau marketing manager, cellar operation manager, wine-producing area certification lecturer and food and wine magazine editors and copywriters.
Chinese and Western Pastry Arts
The Chinese and Western pastry arts program, started in 2019, is a characteristic culinary program offered by the School that integrates Chinese and Western pastry making crafts after the specialties of culinary arts and nutrition and Western culinary arts. This program aims at fostering highly competent skilled professionals who are faithfully committed, fully fledged in morality and professionalism, scientifically and culturally literate, highly employable and capable of sustainable development, and able to engage in purchase of pastry materials, ingredients, Chinese and Western pastry making, innovative development of pastry, nutritious catering and catering management, with good professional ethics and innovation awareness, as well as a craftsmanship of continuous improvement.
This program is delivered by a teaching team comprising full-time and part-time teachers who are qualified as professionally-titled teachers, including 12 full-time teachers and 2 part-time teachers working on campus, most of whom have experience of overseas study and continued education as well as solid theoretical foundation and rich practice.
This program values fostering the professional practical ability and occupational capabilities of students, delivered through a complete range of teaching and practice facilities such as skill master studio, Chinese pastry training room, Western pastry training room, nutrition analysis and catering training room, among other multifunctional training rooms. Meanwhile, the School maintains long-term, stable partnerships with many high star-rated hotel groups, major catering companies and many overseas colleges. With a hands-on training approach that operates in real settings, scenes and fields, this program involves students in hands-on training exercises both on and off campus such as professional knowledge, Chinese and western pastry making and graduation project, as well as internships with major catering companies, catering departments of star-rated hotels and pastry kitchens. Students are encouraged to participate in vocational qualification exam for and get certified as Chinese pastry cook, Western pastry cook and nutrition pantryman; since its inception, teachers and students have won many prizes from various vocational skills contests.
Main courses: Chinese and foreign dietary cultures, pastry arts, basics of Chinese and Western pastry making, ingredients of Chinese and Western pastry, Chinese pastry arts, Western pastry arts, dietary nutrition and catering, catering food safety and control, basics of catering aesthetics, catering business management, senior Chinese pastry cook, senior Western pastry cook, and innovative making of Chinese and Western pastry.
Employment orientations: catering service department of major catering companies, high-star-rated hotels, high-end catering clubs, social catering education and training institutions, baking food companies and various businesses and public institutions, or alternatively, start bakeries or studios as a business owner.