Shandong College of Tourism and Hospitality | Chinese Universities

Shandong College of Tourism and Hospitality(SCTH) has gone through 30 years since its establishment situated in Yanzi Mountain in 1991. With China’s reform and opening up in the 1980s, the development of tourism was surging.

With the guidance of the sonorous oath to “create Shandong’s own tourism school” in 1988, the Shandong Provincial Tourism School, the original name of SCTH, was built at the foot of Yanzi Mountain by the Pipa Spring. Focusing on the core issue of “what kind of talents to cultivate and how to cultivate the talents”, SCTH supports the development of Shandong tourism, influencing that of the whole country and even the whole world. Fostering virtue through education as the basic task, SCTH conscientiously implements the educational policy of the Party and the country. With wisdom and the spirit of pioneering, innovation and exploration, the school has developed at a breathtaking pace.

In 1991, SCTH was officially recruited and there are 90 students in the first batch. In 2004, it was upgraded into a public college level and officially entered the field of higher vocational education. In 2005, it was relocated to the new campus of Zhangqiu University Town in Jinan and the operating conditions were significantly improved. In 2008, awarded the “Five-Star Diamond Award”, the highest honor in the world service industry by the American Academy of Quality Service Science, SCTH becomes the only educational institution in the world to receive this award; In 2009, SCTH, with the five best tourism colleges in China, initiated the establishment of the “Five-star Alliance of Chinese Tourism Colleges”, the Chinese Tourism Education Ivy League. In 2012, it was selected as one of the first batch of Shandong Provincial Skill-oriented Colleges and become a major college in Shandong higher vocational education. In 2014, it was awarded the title of National Advanced Vocational College, and has a due influence in the national higher vocational education field. In 2019, the college has been successfully named Shandong High Quality Higher Vocational College in Construction Project, entering a new stage of high-quality development.

Over the past 30 years, SCTH has developed by following the rules of tourism industy and vocational education and formed its own unique spiritual value system. Insisting on combination of market orientation and international education standard, the college creates a unique value system of seven major concepts under the guidance of college motto with distinctive tourism characteristics. The seven major concepts include the following. The SCTH motto of “Happiness is our vacation”. The SCTH orientation of “The cradle of modern tourism elites”. The SCTH mission of “Educate students to learn to know, learn to do, learn to live together, and learn to be”. The SCTH spirit of “Service-oriented”. The SCTH temperament of “we are gentlemen and ladies, we cultivate gentlemen and ladies”. The SCTH quality of “professional spirit, professional quality, professional skills”. The SCTH vision of "building domestic first-class, world-renowned tourism academy characterized with internationalization, humanization, digitization and ecologicalization”. In the construction of campus culture, with the pursuit of inclusiveness, SCTH integrates service culture, vocational education culture, red culture, Qilu culture, spring water culture, and international advanced culture into college culture, which are widely praised by all walks of life. Those advanced ideas have contributed SCTH to a fast track in various fields as powerful as an engine

Since its foundation more than 30 years ago, SCTH has won many proud “firsts” and the only college in the world that has won the international “Five-Star Diamond Award”, the highest honor in the world’s service industry;

It is a college with a four-star internship hotel on campus;

It is a college with a large golf driving range on campus;

It is a college with an AAA-level campus scenic spot;

It is the tourism college with the largest number of overseas study students and interns and the largest number of overseas channels.

SCTH has taken serving the socioeconomic development as its own mission, having trained more than 40,000 excellent graduates and almost 10,000 trainees from tourism industry during the past 30 years. Demand has outstripped supply of our graduates, with the ratio of employer demand to the number of graduates having remained at 5:1 to 8:1 in the past few years. The employment rate of the students upon graduation is above 97%, overseas employment rate above 15%. In recent years, SCTH has attained the following honorary titles such as the National Advanced Vocational Colleges in Career Guidance, Characteristic College of National Defense Education, National Tourism Vocational Education Model School-Enterprise Cooperation Base, Shandong Civilized Unit of Provincial Organizations, Shandong Provincial Advanced Unit of Tourism System, Shandong Provincial Advanced Award for College Campus Management, Shandong Provincial Model Colleges of Enterprise Education. Our party committee was awarded the title of “Pioneering Primary-Level Party Organization for Reinvigorating Shandong through Science and Education” by the Provincial Party Committee of Higher Education.

Starting from the first 95 students to the current 9,000 students, from the original 80-acre campus to the 1,000-acre campus today, from the original one single major to the current 32 majors, from training 95 graduates to today’s cumulative 40,000 graduates, SCTH has gradually developed and led the efforts to bridge its gorgeous transformation from an industry recruit to the forefront of the first camp of the national tourism education and created its own SCTH Model in the past 30 years.

Since her establishment more than 30 years ago, SCTH has been like a galloping power train, seizing the commanding heights of China’s tourism education one after another with its extraordinary entrepreneurial courage, creative spirit, and excellent wisdom.

What are the reasons for SCTH’s 30-year great-leap-forward development and beautiful transformation from a new beginner in higher education to a famous Chinese tourism school? First of all, thanks to the Party’s Reform and Opening-up policy , without which SCTH would not have come this far. Secondly, riding on the vibrant development of national tourism, especially Shandong’s tourism. And it is the fertile soil of tourism that has supported the growth and success of the young college. Thirdly, SCTH has correctly grasped the essence of tourism education, which means fostering virtue through education, making it a mission of serving the society and tourism industry, insisting on campus cultural construction, energetically promoting international exchange and school-enterprise cooperation to highlight the characteristics of tourism education.

Socialism with Chinese characteristics has entered a new era and Chinese people have realized the first centenary goal of building a moderately prosperous society in all respects. The whole Party and the entire nation are now marching in confident strides toward the second centenary goal of building China into a great modern socialist country in all respects. SCTH is turning 30. 30 years is a brief moment, flashing in the long river of time; 30 years is not short in the long course of history, enough to change many people and many things. President Xi Jinping said, “One who wants to stride ahead should not forget the path that was trodden. No matter how far we will travel and to whatever bright future, we should not forget what we have done and why we set out to do it.” Looking back on the past, 30 years of trials and hardships, 30 years of high spirit, 30 years of SCTH’s having cultivated graduates all over the country. Looking forward to the future, the integration of culture and tourism has become a new trend. The Party and the country have given new missions and responsibilities to the tourism industry, which has put forward higher requirements for the cultivation of tourism talents.

There is a long way to go with the development of tourism and we’ll make our unremitting endeavor. As tourism industry in China has entered a new transition stage, SCTH is faced up with new situation, new opportunities, new challenges, new tasks and new mission. All the faculty members of SCTH will be dedicated to serving the development of Chinese tourism industry, insist on college culture construction, vigorously promote the college enterprise cooperation and international exchange in order to fulfill the historical mission. We foster virtue through education as well as cultivate talent for the Party and the country, making every effort to create a highland for the innovative development of vocational education and become a high-quality provincial higher vocational college. Let the happiness aura of SCTH be more dazzling, and let this sense of happiness accompany every SCTHer’s life.