In order to be effective in a global world, more specifically in the tourism industry, people must have high cultural intelligence.

• Cultural intelligence (CQ) is a rich and dynamic skill set that can be developed through self-awareness and study.
• Learners in this course will develop skills they can take with them and use at work, at home, abroad, or in any setting where cross-cultural awareness, understanding, and interaction is required.
• The focus is on developing competence in cross-cultural communication in a variety of settings related to the tourism industry.

Upon successful completion of this course, learners will be able to:

• Understand differing values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours, including one’s own,
• Demonstrate how cultural diversity and values, attitudes, beliefs and behaviours have an impact on tourism activities
• Describe and explain consequences of ethnocentrism, prejudice, racism, and stereotyping,
• Cite cross-cultural problems and conflicts in the workplace and describe culturally specific problem-solving strategies to resolve these,
• Describe how knowledge of various cultural dimensions such as contextualization, time, cognitive style, individualism and collectivism, power distance, tolerance of ambiguity, and gender relate to understanding client needs and behaviours,
• Research and present communication approaches that acknowledge differences
• Apply knowledge of cultural expectation of themselves & others to tourism workplace
• Utilize knowledge of and cross-cultural communication skills in the provision of tourism services. This includes language, dialect, sender/receiver variables, non-verbal communication, and communication strategies,
• Demonstrate an understanding of the need to design culturally sensitive tourism products
• Understand and enact strategies for becoming inter-culturally competent,
• Design a culturally sensitive tourism activity,
• Identify Canadian organizations and legislation contributing to cultural sensitivity.