Keynote speech title: “How can our students survive well in the era of technology 4.0 and onwards?”

Outline of the speech – This keynote speech addresses the growing attention on emerging challenges, consumers’ changing demand, emotional wellbeing and the implications to our contemporary education. Today we are educating students but often have little idea of what skills may be required in a decade.  But the heart of both tourism and hospitality is the creation of experiences, and we know about the industries' soft skills and how to prepare students.  What we are less sure of is the background to the delivery of those skills as several challenges will emerge, several of which we can anticipate.  One answer is to generate the training of management to engage in continuous contingency planning.

Dr. Chris Ryan is a professor of tourism at the University of Waikato, New Zealand. Professor Ryan is the editor of Tourism Critiques: Practice and Theory, and for 25 years was the editor of Tourism Management. He also founded Tourism Management Perspectives, another SSCI-cited journal. As a researcher, according to Google Scholar Citations, he has over 30,000 citations and an h-index of 82. He has authored or co-authored over 300 refereed journal articles and 14 books, the latest of which is Advanced Tourist Destination Management, with three more being currently prepared. He was noted by PLoS One as being one of the top 0.5 % of global researchers. He has successfully guided more than 30 students through their doctoral degree programs and many now occupy senior university positions as professors, heads of faculty, and research centers. In addition, Professor Ryan is a visiting professor at Beijing Union University, College of Tourism, Beijing and the University of Hainan, International College, Haikou, China.

Keynote speech title: “Are we teaching the right things in our tourism education programs?”

Outline of the speech – Are we teaching the right things to our students? We do a great job of teaching hard skills, but is there enough focus on the type of soft skills employers want? This keynote speech calls for a rethink about how to ensure soft skills are taught.

Dr. Bob McKercher is a professor of tourism at the University of Queensland, Australia. Prior to that, he spent 22 years in the School of Hotel and Tourism Management at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University and started his academic career at Charles Sturt University in regional New South Wales. He worked for about 10 years in the Canadian tourism industry in a variety of operational, advocacy and management roles. He has published over 300 scholarly papers and research reports, is the author or co-author of The Business of Nature-based Tourism, Cultural Tourism and Tourism Theories Concepts and Models. He hasalso edited a number of other books.  Prof. McKercher is the Chairman of the Board of the International Academy for the Study of Tourism; a Fellow of the International Academic for the Study of Tourism and the Council for Australian University Tourism and Hospitality Education.

Keynote speech title: “When ChatGPT is Your Co-author! -  The Role of AI in Hospitality and Tourism Education Research”

Outline of the speech - This keynote speech addresses the research ethics and research integrity related to hospitality and tourism publication. In addition, this talk focuses on the prospect and challenges related to manuscripts written using tools involving the Artificial intelligence (AI) Natural Language Processing (NLP) system. Foreseeable uses of NLP include the generative pre-trained transformer (GPT), the originality and researchers’ intellectual contribution to the task of writing will be discussed. Furthermore, issues of transparency in relation to requirements for authorship credit and contributions in scientific and scholarly publications will be presented. This speech will conclude with strategies for authors when submitting these manuscripts to hospitality and tourism education research journals. 

Dr. Po-Ju Chen, is the Professor at Department of Hospitality, Hotel Management and Tourism, Texas A&M University, and Co-Executive Editor, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Education. Dr. Chen is a two-time US Fulbright Scholar (2015: Austria/2012: Denmark) as a subject matter expert in hospitality management, innovation and social entrepreneurship. Prior to her appointment as faculty and administrator in academia, Dr. Chen had over 10 years of experiences working in hotels, airlines, and restaurants. Her research interests include marketing and consumer behaviors involving hospitality and tourism. Her secondary research focuses on entrepreneurship, innovation, sustainability and cross-cultural research. Her work has earned research awards and academic recognition. Dr. Chen has published articles in leading business, hospitality and tourism-related academic research journals. She currently serves as the co-Executive-Editor of the Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Education (JHTE).