“Creating Tourism Sustainably in Challenging Times”
The 20th Asia-Pacific CHRIE 2022 virtual conference hosted by the School of Hospitality and Service Management, Sunway University, Malaysia was held from 23 to 25 May 2022, with the theme “Creating Tourism Sustainably in Challenging Times”. The conference was attended by a total of 291 participants from 20 countries around the world including Australia, China, Fiji, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Japan, Macau, Malaysia, New Zealand, Oman, the Philippines, Singapore, South Africa, South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand, Turkey, Vietnam and the United States.
The official opening ceremony of the conference commenced on 24 May and was officiated by welcome speeches from esteemed colleagues: Professor Marcus Stephenson (Conference Chair and Dean – School of Hospitality and Service Management), Dr Ralf Burbach (President, ICHRIE), Professor Kaye Chon (Founding Chairman of APacCHRIE), Professor Sam Kim (President of APacCHRIE) and Professor Sibrandes Poppema (Guest of Honour, President of Sunway University). Given the auspicious occasion, the Sunway University Choir also performed a locally-composed Malay song entitled ‘Gemilang’ (translated as ‘Glorious’ in English). The event was also supported by the Ministry of Tourism, Arts and Culture (MOTAC) and attended by YB Dato’ Sri Hajah Nancy Shukri the Minister of MOTAC.
Notable speakers from the fields of hospitality, tourism and sustainability were also invited to speak at both the main and youth conferences including Professor Jeffrey Sachs, Professor Stephen Pratt, Professor Yuhanis Abdul Aziz, Professor Susanne Becken, Associate Professor T.C. Chang, Professor Catheryn Khoo, Professor Kaye Chon and Associate Professor Daniel Chong. There was also an industry panel session which was attended by Mr Christopher Cocker (Fiji), Mr CS Lim (Malaysia) and Ms Karina Lance (UAE). Additional value-added sessions such as the ‘Meet the Editors’ session and soft-skills workshop (Youth Conference) were also included.
APacCHRIE 2022 also saw the provision of sponsorship from STR SHARE Center, School of Hotel and Tourism at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism at the Prince of Songkla University Phuket, SHATEC Institutes Pte Ltd and Insitut Pariwisata dan Bisnis Internasional (IPB) Indonesia.
This conference accepted a total of 186 submission with 156 papers for the Main Conference, and the remaining 30 papers were presented at the Youth Conference. With the overwhelming paper submissions, the conference saw 10 concurrent sessions and 4 concurrent sessions at the Main and Youth conferences respectively. The double-blind paper review process was supported by numerous academicians from the region. The full papers that were submitted were also in the running for three categories of award: Best Papers (Main Conference), Best Paper (Industry Practice) and Best Papers (Youth Conference), all of which were announced at the closing ceremony of the event.
At the closing ceremony, Professor Sam Kim also announced the new board members of APacCHRIE. The conference ended on a high note with two video presentations from the current conference host, Sunway University and the upcoming host, Joji Ilagan International Schools. Ms Joji Ilagan, the APacCHRIE 2023 conference chairperson also introduced the committee members for APacCHRIE 2023.
