Faculty of Hospitality and Tourism Management Delegates
Attended 2018 PATA Annual Summit

On May 17 to May 21, 2018, three of the FHTM delegates, Assistant Professor Dr. Cheng Ting Pong, BITM student Miss Zhang Ruoyan, and BHM student Miss Luo XiaoYan participated in the 2018 PATA Annual summit held in Gangneung, Republic of Korea. 

On day one, the team had attended the Youth Symposium of the Summit. The symposium aims at developing youth students’ capability in joining the hospitality and tourism business. This year, the chair of the symposium asked the students to think about how to access job opportunities and how to prepare themselves to get a job in the tourism business. Miss Luo XiaoYan, one of our students had posted a significant question regarding the threat of AI and robotics to employment in hospitality that was highly affirmed by the panel of the symposium. Relative link regarding the news mentioning about this can be found at: https://www.travel-impact-newswire.com/2018/05/a-thought-leadership-swot-analysis-of-the-pata-annual-summit-2018/

The main conference of the Summit was very informative and inspiring on the future development of travel business.  PATA had the privilege of inviting the former UN Secretary-General (Ban Ki-moon) to deliver a keynote speech followed up with an interview by a BBC reporter. His intelligent comments on the importance of tourism in the world economy reassure the significance of the development done in this economic area. The Summit closed with a debate on the greatest challenge today in the travel and tourism industry and a technology insight session that shed light on the future of travel.