SUNY COIL Conference 2018

Over the past 12 months, educators from China (Jinan) and the United States (Chicago) developed and implemented a series of Collaborative Online International Learning (COIL) modules into their undergraduate-level hospitality and tourism management courses. Between the two schools, more than 200 students have participated in these four to five week fully-online synchronous and asynchronous learning experiences. From the perceptive of the Chinese students, the goals of these two COIL experiences were to: (a) increase general knowledge of the rapidly evolving global hospitality and tourism industry, and (b) enhance soft skills among future hospitality and tourism industry workers. The Chinese hospitality and tourism industry is experiencing remarkable growth when compared to its regional and global counterparts, which underscores the urgent need for a well-qualified workforce who can have an immediate positive impact across of a variety of industry segments (lodging, food and beverage, airlines, rail, meeting and events, and private clubs). One of the many ways to help ensure a qualified workforce is to focus on enhancing hospitality and tourism management courses within higher education. The proposed 30-minute presentation will present findings from a survey exploring the Chinese student experience with COIL in hospitality and tourism management courses. Both expectations and perception of students will be discussed. Finally, a comparison of COIL and non-COIL courses will be presented to stimulate ongoing discussion related to best practices in planning, delivery, and assessment of COIL modules in the Chinese classroom.