University of Yaounde 1: Tourism and Hotel Management Guarantees Confidence

Elizabeth MOSIMA | 12-10-2016 18:12

One of the major innovations that will take place in the department this academic year is the creation of a new restaurant for lecturers.

The Department of Tourism and Hotel Management in the Faculty of Arts Letters and Social Sciences is growing from strength to strength. Beginning from the 2016-2017 academic year some innovations will be realised in the department.

One of the major innovations that will take place in the department is the creation of a new restaurant for lecturers. This is one of the resolutions taken at the Council of the Faculty of Arts Letters and Socials Sciences recently. The Dean of the Faculty of Arts Letters and Social Sciences, Professor Louis Martin Onguene Essono said with this initiative the lecturers can take their breakfast, launch, or snacks in the afternoons instead of going out of campus and wasting much of their time. Also, the restaurant services will give an opportunity to evaluate all the students and to know their performance when they will go to the field. The evaluation will be done by the lectures and the university community.

Created in 2007, the Department of Tourism and Hotel Management has already trained 500 to 600 students who are all on the field. Apart from that the Department of Hotel Management and Tourism will open first year tourism. According to the dean, the problem is that infrastructure is not quite sufficient. He said since there is a huge demand for candidates it is not possible to give the quality training to their students as the department is supposed to till date. He however said the department of tourism has several possibilities that it offers. These include certifications thus short training and Professional Bachelors Degree and Professional Master’s Degree.

The Department of Tourism and Hotel Management offers Professional Bachelor’s Degree and Professional Master’s Degree programmes. The department works in partnership with several schools and companies. Some of these include “The Institut de Recherche Touristique” in France while in Cameroon there are experts from practically all the hotels who continue to give the students the professional branch of teaching. The cost of training stands at FCFA 300,000 and FCFA 600,000 per year for professional masters. The students study in two phases: the first phase which is exclusively academic and the second phase which is professional. That means the students of this department will follow a long period of training on the field (professional internship). At the end of the stage professional naturally the results are good.