China News Service, Shanghai, September 9 (Reporter Xu Jing) The 48th World Skills Competition is approaching, and contestants in 64 events have fully entered the sprint preparation stage. On the 9th, the reporter walked into the Shanghai Business School World Championships Hotel Reception Project Training Base to visit the daily preparations of the young contestants and watch them polish their service skills day after day, striving to present thoughtful and thoughtful Chinese services to global guests on the World Championships stage.
The hotel reception competition focuses on comprehensive front office services, which not only tests the players' professional demeanor and service quality, but also tests their comprehensive professional abilities. Hu Xiao, leader of the Chinese expert team for the World Hotel Reception Project, said that qualified hotel reception practitioners need to have a solid grasp of global cultural and tourism knowledge, have fluent English reading, writing and speaking skills, have a decent professional image, and be able to calmly respond to various emergencies. Basic processes such as reservation consultation, check-in and check-out require repeated training to form stable muscle memory.
This competition is an all-English assessment. The competition venue highly restores the real hotel operation scene, and the assessment details are extremely professional. During the four-day competition period, the same simulated guest will appear multiple times. Players need to accurately identify early service problems and proactively follow up on feedback. In Hu Xiao's view, the competition cultivates practitioners with a complete sense of service, rather than contestants who can only follow the process mechanically. This kind of professional quality of continuously caring for guests requires long-term development.
In order to meet the standards of real competitions, the base completely reproduced the hotel front lobby scene to the training ground to carry out full-scenario simulation training. The coaching team at the base all hold relevant qualifications in English, French and German, and carry out targeted multi-lingual training to help players overcome language difficulties. At the same time, the base adopts the "practical job + competition as training" model, using after school and holidays to organize players to go to high-end hotels for practical training, accumulate experience in real service scenarios, and avoid training and industry reality.
China has participated in the hotel reception project since the 45th World Championships in 2019. Lian Yuqin, a player at the 46th World Championships and current training coach, has experienced the development of this project in China. During her freshman year, she observed the selection for the World Championships as a volunteer and was impressed by the professional and calm service of the senior players. From then on, she embarked on the road to prepare for the World Championships and became a player on the national team for the 46th World Championships. Now, she has transformed into a training coach and is committed to passing on her experience on the field to the new generation of players and accompanying young players to grow and become talents.
Deeply cultivating vocational education, joining the industry, and pursuing further studies are the main development paths for World Championship players. Many former contestants have stayed at the school to teach, or have worked in high-end hotels as management positions. Hu Xiao introduced that the competition often invites senior managers in the industry to play simulated guests. These industry insiders generally recognize the professional abilities of the World Championship contestants and believe that the contestants have the comprehensive qualities to be directly qualified for junior and intermediate management positions in hotels.
Using competitions to promote teaching and competitions to promote construction, the base continues to transform the world competition standards into college teaching standards and industry talent evaluation standards, breaking the public's stereotypes of the hotel service industry and assisting in the cultivation of skilled talents. Jiang Hong, leader of the Chinese coaching team of the World Games Hotel Reception Project and dean of the School of Hotel Management of Shanghai Business School, said that previous World Games players have now grown into the backbone of the industry and continue to bring vitality to the cultural and tourism service field. Jiang Hong said frankly that the World Championship assessment standards keep up with industry trends and continue to iterate. Compared with the formal dress requirements of previous years, the training attire of this year's players has been replaced by simple T-shirts. The lightweight dressing style further tests the players' professional aura and professionalism. It is also the epitome of the image upgrade of hotel service practitioners in the new era.
