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Home Stories2018 Success StoriesLion Travel Service Co., Ltd-Pamela Octavia

Lion Travel Service Co., Ltd-Pamela Octavia

  • date:2019-02-22
Lion Travel Service Co., Ltd. - Pamela Octavia

        Lion Travel Service Company Limited is a leader of Taiwan’s tourism industry and currently holds a market share of more than 14% in outbound tourism, ranking first in Taiwan. In fact, Lion Travel has been operating sightseeing groups from Singapore and Malaysia in Taiwan for more than 10 years, working on bringing oversea Chinese from these two countries to Taiwan for sightseeing. After being listed to trade over the counter in 2013, Lion Travel has set up 12 separate strongholds in China, Bangkok, Vancouver, Sydney, London, and Tokyo. It currently has 92 physical service-locations around the world, actively serving its overseas market.

        The Immigration Business Department of Lion Travel is mainly responsible for providing services for foreigners coming to Taiwan for travel, including sightseeing tours for short stays and related experience activities. In the past, the department would basically hire Taiwanese, but it has been recruiting foreign talents since 2018 as a measure that works in conjunction with the new southbound policy of the government and plans to gradually open up the Southeast Asia national market for travel to Taiwan. Due to the particularity of languages of Southeast Asian countries, such as Indonesian, Vietnamese, Thai, etc., as well as the fact that the penetration rate of English is not as prevalent as that of Europe and the United States, Lion Travel needs talents that are closer and more familiar with these foreign markets in order to open up these southbound markets with great potential. Therefore, hiring foreign talents proficient in local languages has become an emerging demand. At present, Lion Travel is pursuing talents of foreign nationals from Indonesia, Thailand, Malaysia, India, and other countries.

        Hsu Ting-jia, Director of the Foreign Language Sector of Lion Immigration Business Department, said that Lion Travel currently employs fewer than 10 foreign staff members. The requirements for these foreign talents is that they must be proficient in Chinese and good at tourism-based communication; therefore, recruiting suitable foreign talents for the task has not been easy. Director Hsu further explained that tourism is a service industry and needs to make contacts with different suppliers. The core of inbound tourism is to market Taiwan, so Lion Travel also expects foreign talent to have a basic understanding of Taiwan’s tourism, tourist attractions, and factories and suppliers for originals. These demands has made it quite difficult to recruit foreign talents.

        Deng Shou-qi, Director of the English and American Language Sector of Lion Immigration Business Department, noted that current recruitment vacancies include overseas business-development representatives. In fact, Lion Travel has worked with Taiwan External Trade Development Council (TAITRA), Taiwan Tourism Association, and the Tourism Bureau for a long time to sponsor such events as briefings, promotion meetings, and travel fairs overseas. Such activities consist of many tasks for overseas exhibitions and mission participations that demand in talents proficient in local languages to help with contact, organization, group accompanying, and other works. The human resources department of Lion Travel actually participated in an employment-matching meeting held by Contact TAIWAN in April 2018. On that day, many foreign talents submitted their resumes. After levels of screening, Lion Travel recruited Ye Baohua (hereinafter referred to as employee Yeh), an Indonesian overseas Chinese and an outstanding foreign talent. Employee Yeh is now working as a product planner for the department and is responsible for related tourism business from Indonesia to Taiwan.

        Regarding campus activities, Lion Travel participated in the overseas Chinese and foreign students campus career seminars held by Contact TAIWAN at National Chi Nan University (30th May) and National Taiwan University of Science and Technology (18th October) and made contact with many outstanding overseas Chinese and foreign students, which is most helpful for the company to recruit foreign talents. Director Deng said that Lion Travel received nearly 30 resumes from foreign talents at the overseas student and foreign student career seminars held by Contact Taiwan --- National Taiwan University of Science and Technology and employment-matching meeting session. After initial screening, about five candidates met their demands. Director Deng said that he interviewed a potential Indian talent on the spot and arranged for further interviews.

        Director Hsu indicated that the training of new recruits of Lion Travel right now would mainly be in Chinese. However, to help foreign talents adapt more quickly to the internal systems and institutions, they have specially communicated with the human resources department so that these new recruits can hand in English reports and other measures to help them successfully complete new-recruit training. Director Deng further stated that the company will assign specialist Yeh to be responsible for market development and business related to Indonesia. Although employee Yeh has only been in her post for a little more than three months, most of her business has involved contacting Indonesian manufacturers and customers through e-mail, so she has had no difficulty performing such tasks as she is proficient in Indonesian, making much progress and excellent performance. Director Xu pointed out that though no specific number of foreign talents would be required, Lion Travel maintains an open attitude and would actively recruit foreign talents enthusiastic to be engaged in tourism to join Lion Group.

        Indonesian overseas Chinese Yeh, who joined Lion Group earlier this year, said that she was previously enrolled for schooling at the Department of International Trade of Ming Chuan University, which is why she would like to increase her Chinese language ability and accumulate work experience in Taiwan. As such, she took the initiative to sign up for one-on-one employment-match meeting held by Contact Taiwan in Taipei. At the meeting, employee Yeh talked to many different companies on the same day and actually did not expect to devote herself to the tourism industry. On the day of the interview, supervisors of Lion Travel were very friendly and detailed about the company, so that employee Yeh felt that tourism was a very interesting business. Furthermore, the scale of Lion Travel is enormous, with its market share leading others in the trade, which piqued her interest in joining Lion Travel and giving it a try. Later, employee Yeh was lucky enough to receive the opportunity for a second interview, and she strongly felt that the task of tourism was not simple. From business solicitation, planning, and grouping to follow-up customer relationship maintenance, all of the tasks would require a lot of learning, and although it is hard work, it is also very rewarding. Employee Yeh noted that although her Chinese ability requires much sharpening, she can feel the support of her supervisors and colleagues, who help to guide her to learn about professional skills, such as replying to customers, arranging travel routes, and establishing follow-up skills for customer retention. Time and again, employee Yeh expressed her gratitude to the company for providing an opportunity to continuously learn, grow, and improve. In addition to the one-on-one matchmaking meeting, employee Yeh also participated in the overseas Chinese and foreign student campus seminars held by Contact TAIWAN at Jihe Campus of Ming Chuan University. Overall, she has a positive impression of the lectures as being most helpful to career development. Therefore, she has always given much attention to related talent recruitment events held by Contact Taiwan and also recommended it to her foreign friends.

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