Faculty of Tourism Student Wins Encouragement Award at Tour Conductor of the Year 2024 - First Student to Receive Award

From the left: Executive Managing Director Sekiguchi, Mr. Kubota, and Dean Faculty of Tourism Uchiyama

Yuki Kubota, a fourth-year student Faculty of Tourism, Department of Tourism, won the Encouragement Award at the Tour Conductor of the Year 2024 sponsored by the Japan Tour Conducting Service Association, and the award ceremony was held on April 8th at Chiba Togane Campus. At the award ceremony, Akio Sekiguchi, Director and Managing Executive Officer and General Manager of Sales at Hankyu Travel International Co., Ltd., handed the award to Kubota.

The Tour Conductor of the Year award is a system that recognizes outstanding tour conductors who not only manage the itinerary and safety of tours, but also make daily efforts and dedicate themselves to improving customer satisfaction as valuable tour producers.

Ms. Kubota began her tour operator duties in November 2023 as one of the first students of the "Student Tour Operator Program" conducted by the University and Hankyu Express, Inc. During her limited time as a student, Ms. Kubota was in charge of tour operator duties on two one-day tours to Chiba Prefecture, Gunma Prefecture, and Tochigi Prefecture, and two overnight tours to Shizuoka Prefecture and Yamanashi Prefecture, for a total of four tours (9 days) in Japan.
As a student tour conductor, he was recommended by the company for his sincere and enthusiastic attitude toward his work. This is the first time that a student has received this award.

Recommendation points from Hankyu Travel International Co., Ltd.

The recommendation point for this Encouragement Award is her sincere and enthusiastic attitude toward her work while balancing her studies and tour conductor duties. Especially during the overnight tour, despite it being her first long-term tour conductor, she actively communicated with all the customers and made an effort to make them feel at ease. In addition, during the travel without a guide, she livened up the atmosphere in the car with a quiz game that she devised herself, and her careful consideration and consideration for the customers were well received by many customers. In addition to her tour conductor duties, as a first-year student in the program, she was also actively involved in guiding and supporting her juniors, and used her experience to contribute to the development of the next generation, which was a major factor in her evaluation. In addition, at Tourism EXPO Japan 2024, held at Tokyo Big Sight (Koto-ku, Tokyo) from September 26 to 29, 2024, she took the stage as a representative of the student tour conductors who made their debut last year, and conveyed the appeal and sense of accomplishment of tour conductor duties to the audience, which gained a lot of sympathy. Through these activities, she is a role model for others as a young talent who will lead the future of the tourism industry, and this is the reason for her recommendation.

Comments from Ms. Kubota, who received the Encouragement Award

Thank you so much for this wonderful award. During the tour, I was always thinking about how to make the customers enjoy themselves, and I was always creative with the way I guided them and the little things I said to them. There were some difficult moments due to the weather and changes in the plan, but I was always saved by the words of the customers saying "It was fun." I want to turn this experience into confidence and continue to work hard to improve myself.

On October 4, 2024, our university signed a comprehensive partnership agreement with Hankyu Travel International Co., Ltd. (Osaka City, Osaka Prefecture) with the aim of contributing to the development, education, and Research of tourism talent. The "Tourism Project A" began classes on April 8, 2025, in which students learn directly from the company's practitioners about tour product planning (tour creation), a key business in the travel industry.