APTA 2019
Conference Report
The 25th Asia Pacific Tourism Association Annual Conference took place in Da Nang, Vietnam, from the 1st to the 4th of July 2019. The annual conference was co-hosted by the Duy Tan University with support from the Department of Tourism & Hospitality Management, Vietnam. Under the chairmanship of Dr. Yeong-Hyeon Hwang (Dong-A University, Korea), the APTA 2019 annual conference was very successful. 230 valuable delegates attended, from 24 different countries or regions (Australia, Canada, China, Cyprus, France, Hong Kong, Indonesia, Israel, Italy, Japan, Korea, Macau, Malaysia, New Zealand, Philippines, Spain, Switzerland, Taiwan, Tanzania, Thailand, Turkey, United Kingdom, USA, and Vietnam). There were academics, researchers, industry practitioners, and city/government officials, and making the conference such a huge success by sharing their valuable ideas for sustaining the hospitality, leisure, and tourism industries.
After double-blind reviewing processes, a total of 141 research papers (about 25% of 176 submitted papers were rejected) were presented in poster/concurrent sessions during the three days of the conference. The issues of this year’s research presentations were categorized into 15 domains: Consumer Behavior, Human Resource, Technology & Data, Tourism Marketing, Tourism – Others, Destination Management, Cultural/Heritage Tourism, Lodging Management, Hotel Management, Restaurant & Food Service Management, Special Interest Marketing, Community-based Tourism, Education, Tourism Policy, and Sharing Economy.
As a pre-conference event, APTA annual conference provided Thesis in Progress (TiP) session for graduate students to interactively discuss their on-going research with peers, colleagues, and leading supervisors and scholars in the field. Graduate students at all stages are encouraged to participate. This year, a total of 9 research papers (50 of 18 submitted papers were either recommended to poster presentation or rejected) were presented.
Keynote Speech & Graduate Panel Session
Two panel sessions were offered in 25th APTA annual conference. First, Mr. Tuan Anh Le, Director General, Personnel & Organization Department of Vietnam National Administration of Tourism (VNAT) was invited to give speeches about the development of tourism industry in Vietnam. Also, Mr. Benoit Amado, Complex Managing Director, Rosewood Hotel Group was invited to give speeches about high-end resorts in ASEAN countries.
APTA Graduate Panel Session
The graduate panel session entitled “Going Global: Developing Your International Profile and Career” was moderated by Dr. Perry Hobson (Sunway University).
Dr. Metin Kozak (Dokuz Eylul University), Prof. Dimitrios Buhalis (Bournemouth University), Dr. Bob McKercher (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University), and Dr. SooCheong (Shawn) Jang (Purdue University) served to lead the great panel discussion.
Special Session
APTA annual conference provides a special session for delegates to learn about tourism planning, development, and management in specific regions or continents. This special session enables APTA attendees to learn major tourism issues, and interactively discuss the issues with invited speakers who are leading scholars in the region. This year, the 2019 APTA conference held a special session entitled “Sustainable Tourism Management in Africa: Case of Serengeti National Park” with an outstanding guest speaker, Dr. Dev Jani from University of Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
APTA Panel Sessions
During the conference, APTA panel session on “Where is our field headed” – Future of Tourism and Hospitality Research and Scholarship was moderated by Dr. Bob McKercher (Hong Kong Poly University). In the panel session, the four panelists, Dr. Kaye Chon (Hong Kong Poly University), Dr. Metin Kozak (Dokuz Eylul University), Dr. SooCheong (Shawn) Jang (Purdue University), and Dr. Dimitrios Buhalis (Bournemouth University) explored the future of tourism research and scholarship and discuss what can be done to keep tourism as a vibrant field of study.
Conference Proceedings & Best Papers
After double-blind reviewing processes, a total of 141 research papers in poster/concurrent and 9 papers in TiP were selected to present at this conference. Among the papers presented, the first Best Paper Award was presented to Chien-Pang Lin (Chang Jung Christian University) – “How do female hoteliers make hotel giving decisions?”. The second Best Paper Award was given to Yi Xuan Ong and Naoya Ito from Hokkaido University for their paper entitled “‘Do You Still Want to Go?’ – Effects of Scandal to Social Media Influencer Marketed-Destination”. The TiP Session Best Paper Award was presented to Sooyeon Lee and Jiyoung Yoon from Sookmyung Women’s University who drew up paper- “Improving service quality of the franchise restaurant by service process design: an application of service blueprint and FMEA”. APJTR Article of the year 2018 was given to Chien-Yu Chen for his paper – “Influence of Celebrity Involvement on Place Attachment: Role of Destination Image in Film Tourism”.
The Dr. Hai-Sik Sohn (Conference founder) Award
Since 2016, APTA has presented the Founder’s (Dr. Hai-Sik Sohn) Award to commemorate the excellent leadership of the late Dr. Sohn. The late Dr. Sohn (1940-2016) was the founder of APTA who had made significant contributions to APTA while serving as its Inaugural President between 1995 – 2005. The first Founder’s (Dr. Hai-Sik Sohn) Award was given to Prof. Kaye Chon (Hong Kong Poly U.), and the second recipient was Prof. Emeritus Manat Chaiswat (Prince of Songkla U.). This year, the Founder’s award went to Dr. Ming-Huei Lee (Hsing-Wu Tech University) to recognize his dedication to developing and sustaining the hospitality, leisure, and tourism education in Asia Pacific region.
Sponsorship
Our annual conference sponsors are a key component to the overall success of the vial event in APTA. We hope you to join us and be identified as a core group of academic and industry organizations that have earned a highly regarded status with our conference attendees and their extended reach. A total of 10 organizations supported the APTA conference 2019 including Duy Tan University, Dong-A University, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Institute for Tourism Studies, Japan Institute of Tourism Research, Our lady of Fatima University, University of Hawaii at Manoa, University of Houston, University of Missouri, and Wakayama University,
Awards
APTA Founder’s (Dr. Hai-Sik Sohn) Award
Dr. Ming-Huei Lee, Hsing-Wu Tech University, Taiwan
APTA 2019 Best Papers
Chien-Pang Lin (Chang Jung Christian University), “How do female hoteliers make hotel giving decisions?”
Yi Xuan Ong and Naoya Ito (Hokkaido University), “‘Do You Still Want to Go?’ – Effects of Scandal to Social Media Influencer Marketed-Destination”
APTA 2019 Thesis-in-Progress Session Paper Award
Sooyeon Lee and Jiyoung Yoon (Sookmyung Women’s University), “Improving service quality of the franchise restaurant by service process design: an application of service blueprint and FMEA”
APJTR Article of the year 2018
Chien-Yu, “Influence of Celebrity Involvement on Place Attachment: Role of Destination Image in Film Tourism”
