This year, Tourism Retail and Marketing Management students from the Macao Institute for Tourism Studies engaged in a project to aid mbox co. Limited and Robi3 Macau co. Limited who specialise in smart vending machine. The project was to aid the development of their first vending machine that makes and sell egg waffle. This project was initially introduced in the classroom and later completed via virtual methods due to the Covid-19 pandemic.

With the guidance of IFTM Assistant Professor, Dr. Fernando Lourenço, students conducted in-depth market analysis and industry analysis to spot business opportunities and to identify a target market segment. Subsequently, business models and related marketing mix were developed to suit each business opportunity proposed by students. The outcomes were innovative and many new perspectives were generated to aid successful exploitation of the egg waffle vending machine. The developers, Lap Chan and Judy Wong, were very impressed with the outcomes and appreciate the help IFTM offers to small business and entrepreneurs.