The team of the Department of Leisure and Entertainment, led by Prof. Yin-Jen Pan, won the bronze medal of the 2018 National Elite Cup Tour Design Competition, which was organized by the ROC Tournament Planning and Design Association, with their design "Green Way to Taiwan, Black-faced Spoonbill Happy New Year" Participate in the name of the tour and win the bronze medal!

【Department of Leisure, Recreation, and Tourism Management, Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology, won the bronze medal of the 2018 National Elite Cup Tour Design Competition! The team (from left to right) was formed by students Yu-Zhen Wang, Jia-Yi Liao, Yu-Zhe Gi, and their adviser Prof. Yin-Jen Pan】

This competition was organized to promote domestic and international travel planning and design, offering training to talented people for tour planning and encouraging the development of tourism-related industries, and enhancing the professionalism of the industry and individual travel planning and design. It had been held for seven years in a row. It brought forth a big stage for students from tourism-related departments nationwide. Nearly 500 teams in the three regions of Taiwan were elected to the first round of the competition. Only 5 teams were further elected from each region to the final. The competition was composed of college group and senior high school group. Each group further comprised Domestic Tourism Group, Taiwan-Visiting Group, and Tour Design Group. The competition was very exciting and many amazing works were shown.

【Cover of "Green Way to Taiwan, Black-faced Spoonbill Happy New Year"】

In response to the theme of the competition—An In-depth Green Tour, the winning team of Southern Taiwan University of Science and Technology chose the idea "Green Way to Taiwan" as the focus of its first part. The focus of its second part—“Black-faced Spoonbill Happy New Year”—suggested that such great sights as black-faced spoonbills spending their winter down south and black-bellied terns forming tornado-like groups can only be seen in Taiwan. Together with such activities as bidding farewell to the setting sun in South Taiwan and welcoming the first light of New Year at Alishan, all these contributed to the richness of the tour design. The award-winning students in the Department of Leisure, Recreation, and Tourism Management said that they would devote themselves to tourism and leisure industry in the future, hoping to apply what they had learned to tour planning, offering more different design to make more people understand the beauty of Taiwan.

【"Green Way to Taiwan, Black-faced Spoonbill Happy New Year" as presented by the team in briefing】

Hui-Ling Chen, Chairperson of the Department of Leisure, Recreation, and Tourism Management, emphasized that in order to align with the industry and understand the focus of talent training, STUST and the department has been actively encouraging the students to participate in off-campus internships so as to understand the environment of their future workplaces. Teachers have been encouraged as well to help students with their expertise and support students in various competitions. As a result, both teachers and students have a stage for performance, while the goal of STUST—“graduation immediately followed by employment” can thereby be achieved.