Macau’s Class Act

2 minute read
Jennifer Chen

Officially the world’s top gambling destination, the small southern Chinese city of Macau last year hosted over 22 million visitors—more than 40 times its population of 513,000. With at least four more massive casino resorts in the pipeline, those numbers are expected to soar, and that means more jobs for locals in the hospitality industry.

Founded in 1995, the government-funded Institute for Tourism Studies is grooming the next generation of workers to man the front desks, kitchens and boardrooms of this former Portuguese colony’s booming leisure sector. But learning isn’t restricted to the classroom: students also help run the Pousada de Mong-Há, www.ift.edu.mo, a 20-room hotel housed in old Portuguese army barracks. If you’ve had your fill of casino hotels, the Pousada—situated on a hill near the scenic ruins of a 19th century fort—is one of Macau’s better-kept secrets. It’s also affordable (spacious modern rooms go from around $65 a night midweek) and the young, bright-eyed students seem that bit more helpful. “I’m learning about the whole running of the hotel,” enthuses Elaine Fong, a 19-year-old hotel-management sophomore who clocks in about 20 hours a week.

Next door to the Pousada is the unimaginatively named but decent IFT Educational Restaurant—another student-run enterprise that’s easy on the wallet. Among its features are a menu of traditional Macanese fare and a well-edited list of wines priced as low as 40% cheaper than the local norm. It’s enough to make you order that glass of 30-year-old reserve port and toast the value of vocational education.

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