Bournemouth University Department of Tourism and Hospitality was once again a major player at the World Travel Market in 2016. As one the most innovative Tourism and Hospitality University in the world it had a great stand and academics and students from our Tourism and Hospitality courses presented. The Bournemouth University stand this year hosted our partners from Hong Kong Polytechnic University who are working closely with us on research and student and staff exchange.
On Monday morning Professor Dimitrios Buhalis chaired a great panel on eTourism: Disrupting innovations create opportunities and challenges in the tourism and hospitality industry
Disrupting innovations generate significant market structure changes, modifying the operating practices, industry structure and dominant logic. This structural change is affecting the organizational networks and the services tourism players are supposed to use to perform well in markets. Both opportunities and challenges emerge for the whole tourism and hospitality industry. Relationships between players change as their respective roles change; this is driven by e-commerce / e-business and disruptive innovation. For instance hotels, thanks to e-business technological platforms, can now use algorithms to set yield and revenue management strategies, monitor competition in real time and allow consumers to use mobile devices to access several services. In the tourism industry, many innovations have been initiated from companies in the information technology sector. Generally, Information technology is revolutionizing products, services and markets.
CHAIR Professor Dimitrios Buhalis Bournemouth University, SPEAKERS INCLUDED Kevin May Tnooz.com Edward Lines Google.com Mario Hardy Pacific Asia Tourism Association PATA, Thailand, Professor Sarote Phornprapha, Dusit Thani College, Thailand Richard Lewis Landmark Hotels and what3words.com/ Manolis Psaros TOPOSOPHY, Greece Nathaniel Green, DUETTO Research, USA Richard Hatter Hotel Icon, Hong Kong Andy Owen-Jones, BD4Travel, Germany Merilee Karr, UnderTheDoormat, UK Jason Bryant, Nor1, USA Jane Lewis JLC, UK
You can see the video on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BPjO8Ip6hUc The event attracted 335 Unique attendees that included 140 Trade visitors, 66 WTM Buyers’ Club & WTM Leaders, 20 Journalists and Press and 109 Exhibitors.
On Tuesday we contributed to the Pacific Asia Tourism Association (PATA) event on ‘The Role of Youth: Disruption and Entrepreneurship”. Professor Dimitrios Buhalis discussed youth, disruption and entrepreneurship and invited current students Kike Kiril Hristovand and Malvika Nighojkar to contribute to the debate.
On Wednesday 8th November Professor Buhalis participated in the UNWTO Ministerial Summit Tourism and Security: Promoting Safe and Seamless Travel
Tourism is one of the fastest growing and most resilient economic activities of today. International tourist arrivals have grown from 528 million (1995) to 1.2 billion (2015). Although tourism is growing, it is susceptible to perception. Man-made risks and disasters can have a devastating effect on tourism at a destination level, sometimes threatening to damage economies and social structures.
Building resilience requires this responsibility to be shared among all relevant shareholders. This years’ UNWTO & WTM Ministers’ Summit discussed Tourism & Security: Promoting safe & seamless travel.
See the debate on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tbxrvZo6gzk