2020 Annual Chapter Conference
Theme: Tourism and Travel in the Age of Disruption: New Directions or Business as Usual?
7-8 December 2020
The TTRA APac conference is going virtual in 2020!
Tourism and travel are faced with many challenges including the impact of a global pandemic, climate change and calls for tourism to contribute more toward achieving the UN Sustainable Development Goals. This conference explores the threats and opportunities facing tourism now and into the future. It poses questions and debates options for a more sustainable and equitable future for both the tourism industries and the communities that rely on tourism.
We look forward to e-welcoming you to the 7th annual TTRA APac Conference in December 2020 for discussion-format presentations, panels, keynotes, our Annual General Meeting and also time for us to network via ‘distantly socialised’ virtual tea breaks and sharing insights from across our diverse region!
Please contact [email protected] for more information.
Our call for participation is targeted at students, academics, industry and government officials to join us over two days online as we explore how travel and tourism research will ‘take off’ in the new decade. The conference dates coincide with the International Civil Aviation Day, which offers us a timely examination of what our futures are like for the industry and the tourism sector.
To generate engagement, we have designed our sessions to be more interactive (think talk shows), rather than the usual form of one-way presentations. This means that a moderator will introduce the topic and each speaker will get 5 minutes to present. Following this, the moderator will facilitate the discussions among the participants, and then open up the remaining time to the audience for questions.
We call for short 250-word abstracts on the following four topic areas.
- The future of aviation
- COVID-19 impacts on aviation
- Aviation carbon offsetting: To 2027 and beyond
- Competitiveness, efficiency and innovation in aviation
- Tourism crisis and disaster management
- Response and recovery strategies
- Building back better: Approaches to building resilience
- Understanding and responding to consumer sentiment
- Tourism and quality of life
- Tourism impacts on resident quality of life and well-being
- Indigenous and first people tourism
- Social license to operate in tourism
- Cases of successful community-based tourism
- Regenerative tourism
- Climate change transitions and tourism
- Designing for regenerative tourism (circular economy, slow travel)
- Measuring and reducing carbon in travel and tourism
- Cases of successful regenerative tourism
Submissions closed.
Registration closed.
All times in GMT+10
| DAY ONE: Monday 7 December 2020 | |
| 15:00-15:10 | Welcome address
Dr Jeff Dalley, TTRA APac President Dr Aaron Tham, Conference Chair |
| 15:10-16:00 | Panel discussion on repositioning travel and tourism for women in the ‘new normal’
Moderator: Dr Madelene Blaer (Monash University) Panellists:
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| 16:00-16:30 | Keynote speech – ‘Teaching and digital competencies for the new tourism landscape’
Professor Hanqin Qiu (Nankai University) |
| 16:30-17:00 | Networking and Question & Answer Session |
| 17:00-18:00 | Annual General Meeting – All delegates are welcome
Dr Jeff Dalley, TTRA APac President Professor Brent Ritchie, TTRA APac Public Officer |
| 18:00-18:15 | Closing comments for day 1 and instructions for day 2 of the conference
Dr Jeff Dalley, TTRA APac President Dr Aaron Tham, Conference Chair |
| 18:15-19:30 | End of day 1 distanced socializing
Bring your meal and participate in informal discussions with others at the conference |
| DAY TWO: Tuesday 8 December 2020 | |
| 15:00-16:00 | Market research keynote insights
Associate Professor Seul Ki Lee (Sejong University) Mr Siradej Donavanik (Dusit Thani Group) |
| 16:00-17:30 | The TTRA Talk Show (break out rooms) |
| Breakout room 1: Regenerative tourism
Moderator: Ms Carolyn Childs (MyTravelResearch) Participants:
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| Breakout room 2: Crisis management and recovery
Moderator: Professor Brent Ritchie (The University of Queensland) Participants:
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| Breakout room 3: Pivoting on technology and innovation
Moderator: Dr Aaron Tham (University of the Sunshine Coast) Participants:
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| 17:30-18:00 | Networking and Question & Answer Session |
| 18:00-18:15 | Concluding comments and announcements for 2021 conference
Dr Jeff Dalley, TTRA APac President Professor Brent Ritchie, TTRA APac Public Officer Dr Aaron Tham, Conference Chair |
| 18:15-19:30 | End of day 2 distanced socializing
Bring your meal and participate in informal discussions with others at the conference |
KEYNOTES
Professor Hanqin Qiu, Nankai University
Professor Hanqin Qiu is the Distinguished Professor at Nankai University, the Dean of College of Tourism and Service Management. She was the Professor of International Tourism at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University before she joined Nankai, the Vice-President of United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) Hong Kong Association, the Editor-in-Chief of Journal of Quality Assurance in Hospitality & Tourism and the consultant on Education Administration to the Sun Yat-sen University. Professor Qiu will address conference attendees on teaching and learning in an online space, and what these mean in terms of digital competencies for travel and tourism.
Mr Siradej Donavanik, Managing Director, Asai Holdings Co. Ltd.
Mr Siradej Donavanik is Managing Director of Asai Holdings Co. Ltd. a wholly owned subsidiary of Dusit International which oversees the development of ASAI Hotels, an affordable lifestyle brand designed to link curious, millennial-minded travellers with authentic local experiences in vibrant cities and resort destinations worldwide. His vision for the new brand is to leverage Dusit International’s 70 years of hospitality experience and channel it into something new, different and bespoke – with a strong focus on sustainable practices. Mr Donavanik is also Vice President of Development and Projects – Dusit International, responsible for developing new hotel projects; and Interim Managing Director of Dusit Hospitality Education, overseeing the division’s strategic expansion and business development regionally. He graduated from the University of Exeter, UK, in 2007 with a Bachelor of Arts (Hons) in Economic and Political Development. He completed the Executive MBA programme at Sasin School of Management, Chulalongkorn University, Thailand, in 2017. Besides his work with Dusit International, Mr Donavanik helped to start Wonderfruit, the region’s leading art, music and lifestyle festival focusing on social responsibility and sustainability, plus various other social enterprises.
PANELLISTS ON REPOSITIONING TRAVEL AND TOURISM FOR WOMEN IN THE NEW NORMAL
Associate Professor Catheryn Khoo, Griffith Institute for Tourism
Associate Professor Catheryn Khoo is based at the Griffith Institute for Tourism, Australia; Editor-in-Chief of Tourism Management Perspectives; and Series Editor for the “Perspectives on Asian Tourism” published by Springer. She is also the founder of Women Academics in Tourism (WAiT); Asia Pacific Consultant to the United Nations World Tourism Organization (UNWTO)’s 2019 Global Report on Women in Tourism; Special Advisor to World Women Tourism; Advisory Board Member to the International Tourism and Investment Conference; and Special Advisor to World Women Tourism. She has published a collection of articles on Asian female travellers, using her research and knowledge to impact strategy, policy, and advocacy.
Dr Barkathunnisha (Nisha) Abu Bakar, Founder and Director, Elevated Consultancy & Training, World Women Tourism, SheInTourism
Dr Barkathunnisha Abu Bakar, or ‘Nisha’ as she is widely known, is a management consultant, corporate trainer and academic with more than 25 years of extensive management experience in the Tourism, Hospitality and Events industry. As the Founder of Elevated Consultancy and Training, Nisha is currently involved in regional and international consultancy work in the area of tourism and hospitality development in destinations. Nisha is also a co-founder of World Women Tourism, a network intelligence platform that provides opportunities to women in tourism to connect, grow and flourish. The organisation visions to impact the trajectory of women in the tourism industry through promoting diversity, knowledge sharing, building networks, capacity building and opening up business opportunities. In the panel, Nisha will talk about the newly initiated SheInTourism, a collaborative platform that paves the pathways for Asian women in tourism to flourish and realise their potentials.
Holly Galbraith, Co-Founder, Women in Tourism
Holly Galbraith and co-founder Emma Castle established “Women in Tourism (Australia)” in 2015 after sitting through yet another tourism event where the audience was full of women and the stage was full of men. The first Women in Tourism (WiT) event was held in Sydney on International Women’s Day 2015, a restaurant of just forty passionate women has turned into an engaged community of more than 2,500. Women in Tourism Australia aims to foster a positive community of tourism professionals striving for gender balance and diversity at all levels of our industry. This year, 2020, has been a pivotal year for Women in Tourism (Australia). With bushfires and Covid pushing the tourism industry to its limits, WiT has continued to support even more in the tourism industry both in person and online including the launch of womenintourism.com.au which includes a dedicated female tourism speaker directory.
MARKET RESEARCH KEYNOTE INSIGHTS
Associate Professor Seul Ki Lee, Associate Dean of International Affairs, Sejong University, Seoul, Korea
Associate Professor Seul Ki Lee is the Director of the LINC+ Project and the Associate Dean of International Affairs at Sejong University, Seoul, Korea. He is also the Director of Tourism Industry Data Analytics Lab (TIDAL), which specialises in analysis of structured and unstructured data to provide insight on the state of tourism industry, as well as projects in international tourism cooperation. Dr Lee’s research interests are spatial patterns and clusters in tourism, including spatial econometric models that analyse the performance of tourism regions and businesses based on their relative location. Seul Ki has been a recipient of multiple grants from the National Research Foundation (NRF), and received recognitions from the university for his contribution through research and teaching, respectively. At the conference, Associate Professor Lee will share data and analytic results from his research centre on the likely change of future tourist accommodation market after COVID-19.
TALK SHOW PARTICIPANTS
Ms Aletheia Tan, Pacific Asia Travel Association (PATA)
Aletheia Tan is a Community Builder, Project Manager and Digital Marketer. Currently as the PATA Youth Ambassador, she is based in Bangkok, Thailand where she spearheads the PATA Youth Program. Tan has a track record of delivering concrete results in low- resources, high-stress, time-sensitive environments. In the talk show, Aletheia will discuss the PATA initiative B.U.F.F.E.T. (Building an Understanding For Food Excess in Tourism). Launched in 2018, this toolkit was developed to take advantage of the huge opportunity for the tourism and hospitality industry in the Asia Pacific region to take a bite out of the food waste problem. It aims to evaluate the opportunities for the industry and region to step up to the plate and do our part. Starting with case studies as appetisers, serving up full-bodied data focusing on the hospitality sector and digging into the meat of the report where organisations share a generous helping of their food waste reduction practices.