Personal Statement
Applied Program: Hotel Management
             
The success that a person can achieve in his or her career depends largely upon the extent that he or she is emotionally attached to the career that he or she is pursuing. As far as I am concerned, I believe that I am in full possession of the necessary and potential qualities for achieving success in my career because the first day that I was exposed to tourism, I became enamored of this fascinating profession. In undertaking tourism as a profession, I have been exposed to a pluralistic cultural value. In return, I can expose the rest of the world to the ancient civilization of Chinese culture. In other words, I have been able to broaden my vision and horizon on one hand and impart my knowledge of Chinese culture to foreign tourists who come to savor the fascinating Chinese culture. For me, tourism serves as a bridge that connects both China and the rest of the world, linking the past history with contemporary culture. This is exactly the underlying reason behind my intense love of tourism.

As a practitioner of tourism business in China, a major country of tourist attraction, I have always been very proud of the tremendous potential of China’s tourism industry. According to the prediction made by the 14th Conference of World Tourism Organization held in Oct. 2001, China’s tourism will experience a major phase of rapid development within two decades and by 2020 China will become a country of the largest tourist influx. Vice versa, the number of Chinese citizens who visit foreign countries will reach one billion annually, ranking No. 4 in the world. What’s more, China has formally joined the WTO and the Olympic Games will be held in XX within six years. All those factors will contribute significantly to the rapid, yet sustained growth of Chinese tourism industry. In order for China to become a leading country of tourism within 20 years, it is imperative that China’s tourism-oriented hotel industry develop into a mainstay business. In this process, to learn from advanced and successful systems and experiences of hotel industry in the world becomes an indispensable step. It is my expectation that I make my own contributions to this process in my chosen field. This constitutes the most direct motive behind my present decision to apply for a Master’s program in the specialty of Hotel & Tourism Management from your esteemed university.

Compared with a multitude of other applicants, I believe that my greatest competitive edge lies in my academic training and in my ample practical experience in the related fields. My undergraduate career was spent in XX Institute, often regarded as the university of tourism of China. It is the most prestigious university in China which is specifically designed to train future professionals for China’s tourism industry who are equipped with both foreign language competence and specialized knowledge of tourism. On account of this special characteristic of my university, I not only did excellent coursework in my proper specialty—Russian Language—but also benefited importantly from a comprehensive tourism-oriented curriculum that included such specialized courses as General Introduction to Tourism, Geography for Tourism, and Professional Tourist Guide. Taking into account the practical nature of tourism, I took part in a considerable amount of extracurricular activities of fieldwork and internships. I left my footprints in virtually all the major hotels and tourist resorts of XX by working as hotel receptionists and serving as tourist guide. By the time I completed my four-year undergraduate program, I not only mastered Russian language with high proficiency but also achieved all the necessary qualifications for becoming a professional tourism personnel.

For approximately three years since my graduation, I have been working as a tourist guide for international travelers, a career which has further enabled me to accumulate much practical experience and expertise. Working at the European Department of XX, the largest travel agency in China, I have been faced with constant challenges. First of all, I have further enriched my professional knowledge and refined my proficiency in foreign languages, both of which are essential for undertaking foreign-related tourism. Apart from using my knowledge of Russian language and relevant knowledge of tourism with much facility, I have made extra efforts to perfect my English language. Over the past two years, I have constantly improved my English language capacity from passing the TOEFL test with a satisfactory score (the test was taken at the end of my undergraduate program) to the present level of independently and perfectly providing tourist guide in English. In addition, I have also developed the ability to prepare all the work plans and documents in English with much facility. Finally, within the past three years, I have received countless international tourists and dealt with a large number of emergency situations. Those experiences have not only trained my ability of organization and coordination, the ability to live and work independently, but also provided me with important opportunities to demonstrate my professional qualities as a well-trained and excellent tourist guide. All those qualities and qualifications, I believe, will prove vitally important to me in achieving success in my future academic program and professional career.

Nevertheless, in my practical work experience, I have become acutely aware that, although China has made considerable development in its tourism and hotel business over the past decade, yet compared with advanced countries and regions in the world, China lags significantly behind them in terms of the level of information and network development, the efficiency of management, the effectiveness of decision-making and, ultimately, the level of profitability. XX constitutes one of the most renowned bases of top-level hotels in the world, full of creative and original concepts of hotel, tourism and cuisine service and management. In the same way, the College of XX of XX University is ranked among the top institutions of high education in hotel management in Asia. Designated as its international headquarters and secretariat by the XX, the College has been accepted by the International Tourism Organization as the network member for hotel and tourism education. The College is the only one of its kind in Asia to have received this special honor. It is my expectation to be part of the elite group of this prestigious College. By conforming myself to the trends of the age of knowledge economy and to the demands of the present-day hotel and tourism industry, I am determined to develop myself into professional of hotel management who is equipped both with the advanced knowledge of hotel management in the world but also with the practical experience of local market operations, a person who can assimilate both Western and Chinese experiences. My ultimate plan is to bring advanced hotel and tourism management methods and operations back to the mainland to facilitate my own career development.