The University of Johannesburg’s Confucius Institute (UJCI) will host a four-week Tourism Mandarin and Chinese Culture training course at no cost for South Africa’s tourism practitioners including university students majoring in tourism and hospitality studies. The fully online course, starting on Saturday, 13 November, will be offered every Saturday thereafter and on Tuesday evenings until 11 December at no cost to the course participants.

Online registration remains open for this event, but it closes on Thursday, 11 November.

Targeting a total of 150 participants, up to 120 candidates had already registered as of Thursday, 4 November. Seats are therefore limited. Hosted in collaboration with the Tourism Business Council of South Africa (TBCSA) as well as the UJ School of Tourism and Hospitality (STH), this course was organised to support South Africa’s tourism industry, particularly with the aim of attracting the Chinese market. Alongside tourism major students, the programme is also open to all tourism practitioners (staff and officials) working in hotels, transport and related industries.

According to the UJCI, the course will be offered in one and a half-hour time slots from 10:00 to 11:30 on Saturdays, and from 18:00 to 19:30 on Tuesday evenings.

The University of Johannesburg Confucius Institute is a joint initiative of UJ and Nanjing Tech University in Nanjing, China. It began operating in February 2015 and was officially launched in January 2016. In 2019, it won the ‘Global Confucius Institute of the Year Award’ conferred by the Confucius Institute headquarters in China. Like its sister institutions, its mission is to promote the study of the Chinese language and an interest in Chinese culture.

To this end, the Institute offers Mandarin courses for university staff and students, members of other organisations as well as members of the public, administers international proficiency tests in Chinese, and organises events and exchanges aimed at promoting an understanding of Chinese language and culture.

Refer to the detailed brochure for registration and additional other information.