Brief History

The Tourism Health Research Institute was established in 2001. In line with the college’s focus on healthcare, it is committed to cultivating tourism health professionals. In the academic year 2015 the Department of Leisure Industry and Health Promotion was established, meanwhile, the department and the institute were unified, with the goal of cultivating professionals with expertise in leisure and health science. In recent years, global tourism has become popular. The number of international tourists visiting Taiwan has increased rapidly, and the number of domestic and overseas tourists has also continued to increase. The authorities concerned respond to the high-risk nature of tourism itself and the advent of an aging society, in order to ensure the safety of food, accommodation and transportation, tourism, shopping, entertainment and other aspects in the travel itinerary, and understand the health status of tourists, and face various threats to health and diseases hidden in different environments, and then make proper countermeasures. Integrating the college's interdisciplinary resources and practical advantages, the department aims to strengthen students' professional knowledge and employability skills, assist in obtaining relevant certificates such as leisure tourism and health promotion, and assist students to achieve their career planning goals.

Mission Goals

Goals for undergraduate program：

• To cultivate professionals in health promotion and leisure industry.
• To cultivate students who are capable of interoperability between leisure & tourism practice and health & technology.
• In response to the trend of domestic leisure & tourism and health needs, to cultivate students' professional skills in leisure and health promotion.

Goals for Master’s/ in-service Master’s Tourism and Health program：

• To cultivate professionals with leisure and health promotion skills.
• To cultivate professionals with skills in tourism and health crisis management.

The Department (Institute) combines the principles of leisure, tourism and health science to cultivate professionals with expertise in leisure and health field, so that the students of the Department (Institute) have the correct view of health, global mindset, environmental vision, and life view of service and dedication. The Department aims to enrich students with professional knowledge, and to train them to have expertise in health promotion services, competence to handle crisis for leisure and travel health, competence in leisure and recreation planning and communication, civic and ethical literacy, knowledge and skills for leisure and health and global vision, leisure and travel technology and applied practice and Self-directed learning. Students can strongly demonstrate the spirit of ICRT (Innovation, Communication, Respect, and Teamwork). At the same time, they also have the wisdom to seek various available resources to play an important role in the professional field, hoping to help clients conduct leisure and travel behaviors that are "healthy, safe and of high-quality", so as to meet the health and safety needs.

Development Characteristics

• The instruction design integrates the knowledge concepts of leisure tourism and health promotion. In addition to the compulsory subjects of leisure and recreation, and health promotion, there are also elective courses such as tourism industry, green leisure industry and special leisure industry, providing students with a variety of subjects to meet their diverse needs on choosing courses.
• There are professional classrooms for Multifunctional Lab for Leisure and Heath and for leisure and safety, to strengthen students’ practical experience and employment competitiveness.
• Domestic or foreign scholars and experts in related fields are invited to hold contests, , seminars and special lectures so that students can learn about the latest leisure tourism trends, and that their professional knowledge and skills their vision and global mindset can be developed.

Education Resources

• Multifunctional Lab for Leisure and Heath：
• In response to social development trends and emergency situations, the classroom is equipped with well-equipped professional equipment for emergency ambulance training, such as "airway dummies", "three-in-one oxygen units", "A.E.D. trainers", " Resusci Anne" and other E.M.T. related training materials, which can guide students to obtain EMT-1 the Entry Level Emergency Medical Technician certificate. In addition, there are also professional equipment such as "Elderly Wearing Device", "Bingo Throwing Device" and "Nintendo Switch Console" to meet different teaching needs. Through the department's professional classrooms, students can learn professional skills and enhance their competitiveness in the workplace by adding value to their health professional knowledge.

• Lab for leisure and safety：
• The classroom is equipped with a unique professional set-up for tour bus escape simulation, which is in line with relevant courses such as Introduction to Tourism Safety. Through the courses and scenario simulation, we create a realistic safety practice teaching environment for tourism and leisure, enabling students to simulate an escape in a dark tour bus and to understand whether the escape is correct through infrared camera recording, which implements the practical training of tourism health emergency rescue, and provides students with practice drills in class and after class, so as to improve the practical experience and emergency response ability of students in the department.

Career Opportunities

Bachelor’s Program：

• Travel and tourism industry: tour guides and tour leader personnel, tourism event planners, and tourism and leisure management personnel, etc.
• Green leisure industry: professionals in tourism destination management, leisure activity planners, and interpreters and guides.
• Special leisure industry: Health management personnel, tourism health care personnel, medical tourism professionals, leisure health care professionals, and ageing education tour guides, etc.
• Further education: Students can apply for master's degree programs in Tourism and Health Science, Tourism and Leisure, Health Business Management, Tourism and Recreation, Eco-Tourism, and Landscape Recreation.

Master’s Program/In-service Master’s Program：

• • Senior and middle management staff of tourism and health science-related organizations and corporate organizations.
• • Professional assistants in academic-related organizations or administrative staff in tourism administrative agencies and corporate organizations.