With China gaining popularity as a tourist destination, the University of Hawai'i community college system is hoping to play a part in training Chinese workers in the hospitality industry.

Kapi'olani Community College and the University of Hawai'i system next week will host three dignitaries from China's Ministry of Education and its Higher Education Training Center to discuss training methods in preparing workers for the tourism industry.

Chinese government officials want to upgrade the skills of their vocational and technical school graduates, particularly to handle the growing market of international tourists, said Ron Takahashi, chairman of Kapi'olani Community College's culinary arts department.

"They're looking worldwide for collaborations and partnerships with various institutions to help provide some of this training," he said. "What we hope to do is sign a training agreement with them, not just for Kapi'olani but for the whole community college system."

Under KCC's proposal, instructors from Chinese institutions would come here to be trained in international hospitality. They would return to China and use KCC's curriculum, at least some of which could be provided via distance-education courses. A Hawai'i team would go to China to provide practical certification exams. Such a contract would generate revenues for the UH system.

U.S. and other major Western hotel companies are expanding quickly in China as the country prepares for the 2008 Olympics and travel there grows. The World Tourism Organization has estimated China will become the top tourist destination in the world by 2020.

"It's a rapidly expanding business for them and they've come under the realization that they're going to need some outside assistance to get everyone trained," Takahashi said.

"The problem in China is that it's been closed to outside travel for so long that a lot of the population has never even visited an international hotel or ate at an international restaurant. So the limit of their experience is basically Chinese. And so now with all these international hotels and international restaurants coming up, corporations are going to have a hard time trying to staff it with qualified personnel."

Takahashi also said the UH community college system sees itself playing a major part in preparing Americans to do business with Chinese.

"We're also looking at the possibility of training Americans for Chinese business practices and doing business in China," he said.

Reach Lynda Arakawa at larakawa@honoluluadvertiser.com.