One + March/April 2011 - (Page 64)

Middle Kingdom Come Strategic meeting course brings advanced education opportunity to Chinese professionals. B Y J E S S I E S T AT E S WHEN DELEGATES BROKE INTO DISCUSSION GROUPS, JUNIOR TAUVAA ASSUMED THEY WOULD SPEAK IN MANDARIN. THEY DIDN’T. MPI’s vice president of member services and chapter business, Tauvaa was overseeing China’s inaugural Global Certiﬁcate in Meetings and Business Events II training program in Beijing, Dec. 13-17. The course is one of several that MPI offers at locations across the globe; a recent partnership with the Beijing Tourism Administration brought the summit to the “Celestial City.” And the delegates there were ready to talk business—in a language more readily understandable in the international community than their native tongue: English. “The challenge for the meeting industry in China is that the market there is growing at an unprecedented pace, and many of the professionals there don’t have access to experienced mentors,” Tauvaa says. Until now, China relied on skilled meeting professionals from foreign soils to guide its industry. Now the country hopes to become a major player in the international meetings marketplace and plans to educate its own workforce to lead the battle. Part of that plan includes the MPI training program, which interfaces nicely with the Convention Industry Council’s CMP meeting certiﬁcation. And with extraordinarily high satisfaction scores (educational content and instructor quality each achieved 100 percent positive responses), the students—many of whom already work in the meeting industry—overwhelmingly (well, all) reported that the program will positively impact their careers. RILEY ZHANG One such student was Riley Zhang, originally from Huhhot, the capital city of Inner Mongolia. He says his mother and father—a physician from Beijing and a school teacher from Shanghai, respectively—“put many of their dreams” 64 one+ 03 / 0 4.11

Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of One + March/April 2011

One + March/april 2011
Contents
Energy of Many
Impressions
Ultimate Fail
Overheard
Agenda
Ask the Experts
Thoughts+Leaders
Wonders, Man
Business Is Back
Top Spots
Connections
Irrelevant
Fail vs. Fail
Long Distance Sportsmanship
The Conference Is Not About You
Eat, Play, Love
Fantastic Fit
Where Tomorrow Happens
Middle Kingdom Come
All Together Now
Economic Impact Study
The Truth of Tech
The Social Networker
Applified
Super Wi-Fi Is Coming
The Kitchen Sink
@ Your Service
Your Community
Making a Difference
Until We Meet Again
MPI's 2011 Meeting Guide to Colorado

One + March/April 2011