This is the eleventh year McGill University students have traveled to global economic centers and emerging markets. Earlier this year, the students, alumni and professors traveled to Japan and Thailand to study business trends in the Far East.
About 30 people from disciplines including business, law, the arts, engineering and medicine joined the Desautels Faculty of Management’s Hot Cities Tourto Tokyo, Bangkok, Hong Kong and Hua Hin, a coastal island in Thailand known for its tourism. Associate Professor Karl Moore leads the group and explains why this year’s circuit was chosen. “The trip is ‘taking the future to the future’ that is young people to where the world economy is experiencing considerable growth. Now Tokyo is one of the great cities of the world. Because of a lack of immigration and an aging population it’s perhaps sliding back a little bit vis-à-vis China. But it is still one of the great cities of the world. Bangkok and Thailand was chosen because it’s an emerging country with considerable growth rates. And went to Hong Kong for a day and a bit because we just can’t fly from Bangkok straight back to Montreal and so decided to spend a day and a bit and meet some very interesting people.”
The participants met with corporate and legislative leaders including executives from Bombardier Asia, Shopify, Deutsche Bank, WalMart and L’Oreal. They discussed ecotourism with Wildlife Friends Foundation Thailand and met with social media executives.
Management Senior Kenza Bennis is a double major in Finance and Accounting. She says while economic concepts can be taught in a classroom the trip is invaluable. “What is valuable to see them in this context is that you can relate them to the experiential learning that you do in the trip. And so it was just quite interesting to see how global competitiveness is affecting Tokyo or how thinking global versus local is applied in all of these countries and just talking to like the CEO’s and all of the people we had the chance to talk to and make these links.”
Bennis is from Casablanca, Morocco. She is at McGill in Montreal, Canada because she wanted to study at a prestigious international university. This is the first time she traveled to Asia. “One thing that struck me especially in Thailand is that I see a lot of similarities with Morocco. I see how the economy is evolving. I see how they’re in need of leaders that have this local understanding of the country but also a global aspect because it’s new issues that they’re facing and they need people to make things move.”
Moore says the Hot Cities Tour returns to Asia frequently because much of the world’s economic growth is occurring there. “Europe is somewhat in decline. The U.S is the world’s greatest economy and Canada is very much involved with that. But the future is to considerably be in Asia therefore the U.S. must continue to develop those relationships. China particularly is not a shrinking violet. They are the only country that’s been important throughout human history. The U.S. must come to terms with Asia because Asia is the future to a considerable degree for the world economy.”
Bennis adds that as a perspective manager in a global economy it’s critical to consider the Asian perspective on business and finance. “It’s quite important to be able to distinguish like what global expertise are you bringing versus what local responsiveness you must have. And so being able to experience it there and to learn about how the ways they do business there is ultimately a very good experience to build this kind of knowledge.”
Past Hot Cities of the World Tours have included trips to Singapore, Malaysia, Manila, Jakarta, Bali, Mongolia, South Korea, and India.
