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“Based in Taiwan, with expertise in Europe and the world in view,” the Graduate Institute of European Cultures and Tourism at NTNU (GIECT) is a place where researchers undertake diverse Europe-related research, and where students are trained into tourism talent of international vision and cultural cultivation. |
Founding Mission:
1. Integrate specialized liberal arts and technological disciplines to train versatile European tourism professionals with international vision and aspiration.
2. Increase national competitiveness by intertwining tourism and culture (“to tourize culture and culturalize tourism”), by spreading the concept of “cultural travel”, and by improving the service quality and transportation efficiency of the travel industry.
3. Enhance interdepartmental and intercollegial resource integration with efficiency in mind, and promote industry-university cooperation and exchange.
4. Establish complementary sister-school relationships with major European academic institutions in order to get on track with the culture of European tourism and to create a cultural tourism industry in Taiwan. |
Development:
GIECT is a culture and tourism research and training center that makes effective use of NTNU equipment and resources, keeps up with developments at major institutions of tourism learning around the world, coordinates with the developmental objectives and trends of Taiwan’s tourism industry as well as with national development planning. |
Balancing theory and practice:
At GIECT, discussion of the meaning of European cultures is stressed in instilling in students a sound culturally-oriented theoretical foundation while at the same time developing cultural resources to benefit tourism; for the greater and greater acceptance of tourism and recreation means that more and more people can personally experience the meaning of European cultures. |
Professionalization:
Raise the level of professionalism of tourism talent by ensuring that guides gain intimate familiarity with the target cultural and geographic environment, because guides are not just service personnel who satisfy tourists’ needs, but rather consultants with specialized knowledge, or even “cultural navigators” who can lead visitors to taste the very marrow of European cultures. Liberal arts education and specialized training ensure that tour guides will be transformed into cultural educators.
Train talent comprehensively skilled in European tourism and culture in accord with the Challenge 2008 National Development Plan.
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Planning:
Integrate current resources in order to increase knowledge of European cultures in governmental circles and in the general public; to promote intercultural exchange; to stimulate research on European cultures; and to raise national competitiveness. |
- Short-term objectives:
-Integrate NTNU resources to carry out diverse research on Europe oriented around culture or tourism.
-Train cultural and tourism talent with international vision and cultural refinement. |
- Mid-term objectives:
-Offer courses in the languages of Europe.
-Advance interdepartmental integration in accord with NTNU’s varsity-wide transformation.
-Form sister-university relationships with major European universities.
-Engage in industry-university cooperation to diversify domestic and international practicum opportunities.
-Enhance mechanisms of academic exchange and personnel visitation.
-Publish a dedicated academic journal to promote international cultural and academic exchange.
-Improve the quality of sightseeing guides.
-Set up a globally-oriented academic discussion board on Europe/tourism/culture. Hold an international conference.
-Establish databases for theoretical or empirical research. |
- Long-term objectives:
-Train tourism professionals as part of the government’s Asia-Pacific Regional Operations Center (APROC) policy.
-Live up to the motto of “Based in Taiwan, with expertise in Europe and the world in view” and promote debate and research of a theoretical and empirical nature by integrating tourism resources in industry, officialdom and academia. |
