Someone says, the best travel experience is the people met. Cardi Chung, Senior Manager, Event and Product Development of the Hong Kong Tourism Board, enjoys travelling and once being a tour guide. After graduation from the Haking Wong Technical Institute (the former IVE), in 1980, she began to work in the inbound tourism industry and serve the visitors to Hong Kong. Starting from 2001, she was responsible for promoting Hong Kong tourism events and attractions to tourists all over the world. Indeed, rather than talking about scenery of her journey, her sharing of communication skills she had learnt from tour guiding and how she brought joyful travel experiences to tourists are more fascinating.
Cardi started her working life at a young age. After graduation from secondary school, she enrolled in the Certificate in Tourism Coordination Studies at the Haking Wong Technical Institute. She worked as a tour guide when she was not yet 18. She expressed, “At that time, most graduates preferred stable office job. I am active and talkative, so I want to be a tour guide. Most importantly, this job can bring lots of joy to people. We go traveling with different reasons, but we all want happy journeys.”
When the young tour guide meets foreign tourists……
Most people may think that the work of a tour guide is to simply introduce to visitors the places to eat and tour around. In fact, Cardi believes that a tour guide shoulders great responsibility and needs to demonstrate strong problem-solving skills when unexpected circumstances or crises arise. She said, “I remember that when I was a junior tour guide, the air ticket of a member in a 40-people tour disappeared without a clue. The visitor insisted that he had passed it to me but I could not find it. As the flight was going to take off soon, there was no time to argue who should take the responsibility for the lost ticket, so I purchased another ticket at my own cost and let him continue his journey.” Cardi still clearly remembered that the ticket price was HK$1,600, which was 4 times of her basic salary at that time. Although she finally received refund of money from the airline with the help of her supervisor months later, she had already learned a lesson! She explained, “It is unavoidable that things may go wrong or out of your expectation at work, but when it happened, we must take the responsibility and by all means solve the problem.”
In early 1980s, with the open-door policy of China, Cardi was among the first batch of tour guides to bring overseas tourists to visit the country. At that time, the infrastructure & tourism facilities were not well developed. There was one time her group had to stay in military camp modified hotel with limited supply of hot water. “We had to take a cold shower when hot water was not available. For breakfast, we could not have toast with butter but just congee and steamed bun.” To manage visitors’ expectation, Cardi briefed them before departure that “Even if the arrangement of the trip is not what you expected, you can regard it as a ‘special’ experience in life.” Amazingly, after listening to her words, the group of overseas uncles and aunties travelled across the country without any complaint. She remarked, “Tour guiding gives me the opportunity to learn to communicate with people in different nationalities and ages, understand and manage their expectations. It is a very valuable experience.”
As a tour guide, Cardi learned to attend to details, prioritise tasks and be well organised. Later on, she had a totally different and challenging career. Cardi became the Manager of Community Relations and Special Projects of Asia Television Limited (ATV) before turning 30. That was the golden age of ATV. She shared, “I brought the Miss Asia Beauty Pageant contestants including Candy Lo to Barcelona for overseas shooting. I successfully persuaded the management of a bull-fighting ring to let us shoot at the venue for free, saving USD 150,000 budget for ATV. It amazed the industry and was widely publicised in the media.” However, she was not satisfied with her success because of her comparatively low academic qualification. Cardi said, “Even my secretary had a college degree.” So she decided to quit her high-salary job and pursued university education in the United States.
Back to school again, Cardi thought that the practical skills developed at work might not be applicable to her study, but that was not the case. She became a Teaching Assistant when studying for a master degree programme. She was responsible for the tutorial lesson of public speaking course. Cardi said, “I worked for years as tour guide before and so public speaking is my strength.” But it was not easy for a Hongkonger to teach native Americans on English public speaking skills. Some of them were even senior citizens aged forty to fifty or above. She expressed, “At the beginning of each semester, students were skeptical of her capability when seeing a Chinese instructor.” With the successful experience in managing the expectation of overseas tourists, Cardi found the way to manage the students, “It is certain that I could not speak better English than my students. But every time when they finished their speech, I would offer suggestions on how to overcome or ease the nervousness and make improvements. Then I would present their speeches in my way. When they noticed the difference, they showed respect to me.” By the end of semester, students would call her “Miss Chung” politely when they met her. Cardi earned their respect.
Build up Hong Kong's image as The Events Capital of Asia
Cardi studied and worked in the United States for almost 9 years. With her brilliant communication skills, she had served various state and city government departments in the community liaison and public relations jobs. She was hired by the Census Bureau under the US Department of Commerce as the Community Specialist for Texas, Louisiana and Mississippi to promote “Census 2000”, the largest census project in the US history. As an Asian lady who worked in a foreign place and had to go to different communities to rally for support, Cardi upheld the enthusiastic, can-do spirit she possessed since the first day working as a tour guide. She added, “I gain the trust from others not because I am clever, but because I work hard with passion and commitment. How can my English be better than Americans in the United States? I choose to do my best with a good work attitude, urge myself to go the extra mile and do not be afraid of doing more than others.”
Cardi has returned to Hong Kong since 2001 and has been responsible for the development and promotion of tourism events and products for the Hong Kong Tourism Board. Within the 17-year career, the number of projects promoted each year has been increased from 100 to about 500. She introduced her work in a special way: “Event is the software. For example, Hong Kong Sevens, Hong Kong Marathon, Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance, etc. On the other hand, product is the hardware. For example, Disneyland, Ocean Park, Old Town Central, Hollywood Road, Wong Tai Sin Temple, and even the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macao Bridge which soon to be opened. As long as the project has the potential to attract overseas visitors to Hong Kong and enhance visitors’ travel experience, it is our target for promotion.” Hong Kong is full of attractive software and hardware, and they appeal to different source markets and segments. Thus, the number of promotion projects is increasing every year!
With a wide variety of accountabilities, Cardi has to handle multi tasks. For instance, at noon time on a day, she suggested to the organiser the reception arrangements for the overseas visitors to enjoy the upcoming Tai Hang Fire Dragon Dance. And in that afternoon, she facilitated a hiking event by discussing with the Transport Department about road closure and traffic arrangements. Then she would negotiate with another signature event organiser for enrolment quota allotted to overseas visitors, and so on. With her packed schedule of work, Cardi, representing the Hong Kong Tourism Board, liaised for different tourism projects, facilitating event organisers and inducing visitor arrivals to Hong Kong. Cardi described her role as “to dress up for others”. She enjoys her work very much. “To bring success and joy for others is my greatest pleasure!” she exclaimed.
