Here’s our 2024 Featured Speakers lineup

Keynote Speaker

Title: The travel decision-making process among three different generations: X, Y and Z

Currently she is an associate editor for Journal of Responsible Tourism Management and also peer reviewer for many academic journals. She has been actively involved in multidisciplinary behavioural research, covering topics and issues related to International Tourism, Tourism wayfinding behaviour, Tourist Traveling Behaviour, Tourism impact, Tourism development and planning. So far Dr. Chang has been published many papers in SSCI journals such as Tourism Geographies, Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, Journal of Vacation Marketing, Tourism Culture & Communication and also international peer review journals such as World Leisure Journal, Society & Leisure, Asian Journal of Business Research, Journal of Tourism, and etc. Her paper ‘” Is virtual reality technology an effective tool for tourism destination marketing? A flow perspective. Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology” received “Article of the Year Award” from Journal of Hospitality and Tourism Technology in 2022.
Dr. Chang received her Ph.D. from Park, Recreation and Tourism Resources, Michigan State University since 2003, and then join Ming Chuan University till now. She used to be a department director from 2006 to 2018 and also continue devoting her time and efforts in teaching and research and also participating in industry and government projects.

Past Speakers

Title: Coordination of complementary tourism supply: the pursuit of profitability in the presence
of a foreign tour operator.

She has a degree in economics from University of La Laguna (1991), a master degree in economic analysis from Autonomous University of Barcelona (1995) and a PhD in economics from University of Barcelona (1998). She works in the fields of tourism economics and economic growth. He has participated in numerous research projects, and has published in Tourism Management, Journal of Sustainable Tourism, Journal of Air Transport Management and Tourism Economics, among other journals. She is a member of the Business Institute (IUDE), the Institute for Social Research and Tourism (ISTUR) and the Chair of Tourism at the University of La Laguna. She is head of the research group Economic Analysis of Tourism at the University of La Laguna.

Hsuan Hsuan Chang is a professor of international tourism in the Faculty of Leisure and Recreation Management of Ming Chuan University. She has been actively involved in multidisciplinary behavioural research, covering topics and issues related to International Tourism, Tourism wayfinding behaviour, Tourist Traveling Behaviour, Tourism impact, Tourism development and planning. So far Dr. Chang has been published many papers in SSCI journals such as Tourism Geographies, Journal of Travel & Tourism Marketing, Journal of Hospitality & Tourism Research, Journal of Vacation Marketing, Tourism Culture & Communication and also international peer review journals such as World Leisure Journal, Society & Leisure, Asian Journal of Business Research, Journal of Tourism, and etc.

Dr. Kelly La Venture is a prestigious Fulbright Scholar, Fulbright Specialist, author, keynote speaker, Professor to Know in Online MBA Programs in Minnesota, and Associate Professor, College of Business at Bemidji State University.

Dheeraj Sharma is Director, Indian Institute of Management. He has more than twenty years of work experience. He has taught at numerous educational institutions in Europe, Asia, and North America. Prof. Sharma has a doctoral degree in business administration with a major in marketing strategy and a double minor in psychology and quantitative analysis from Louisiana Tech University, USA. He has published more than 150 articles and 10 books

Koustab Ghosh is Associate Professor and Dean Academic Affairs at the Indian Institute of Management Rohtak, Haryana, India. His academic specialisation lies in the discipline of organizational behavior. He has published multiple papers including in FT 50 and A* journals. He serves the editorial review board of prestigious scholarly journals. He has been part of several projects in various fields both in public and private sector organisations. He has conducted training programs for executives and officers in various domains like administrative services, law enforcement agencies, intelligence services, corporate sector, and academia. He is a member of the Academy of Management (AOM) for the tracks of organizational behavior and organization theory.

Mohamed Boukherouk has 20 years in the tourism sector. Previously, he was a travel agency manager and had the task to develop the production and the performance of the travel agency both in cultural tourism and MICE. From 2015, he is professor-researcher of tourism, geography and innovation related to tourism at the Higher School of Technology (Cadi Ayyad University Marrakech, Morocco). He can bring expertise in micro and macro domains related to tourism.

Christina K. Dimitriou is a Certified Hospitality Educator (CHE) and Certified Online Instructor who has been teaching undergraduate and graduate tourism and hospitality courses for over twenty years in Europe and the United States. She has industry experience in hotels and her research accomplishments include journal articles, book chapters, conference posters and presentations at regional, national and international conferences.

Filareti Kotsi, a recipient of several recognition awards, is a Professor and the Graduate Programs Coordinator at the College of Communication and Media Sciences at the Dubai campus at Zayed University in the United Arab Emirates. She teaches in the undergraduate and graduate specialization of Tourism and Cultural Communications. Her work has been published in various journals such as Tourism Management, Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, Journal of Destination, Marketing and Management, and Tourism Management Perspectives. Dr. Filareti holds a doctorate in Communication from the Ecole Normale Supérieure (France).

Pınar Barut is doing her PhD in tourism management at the Faculty of Tourism at Eastern Mediterranean University in North Cyprus. She is a lecturer at Cyprus Science University in North Cyprus. Her research focuses on “The Effects of the FED’s Monetary Policy on Tourism & Hospitality Stock Returns: Empirical Evidence from Top Tourist Destinations”

Sevim Sezi Karayazi is a Ph.D. candidate at the Urban Systems and Real Estate Unit from the Eindhoven University of Technology, the Netherlands. She has a background at utilizing location-based data to understand the geospatial relation of urban heritage and people in the context of over/under tourism in historical cities. Her research focuses on “Leveraging Newly Available Big Data for Equal Accessibility of Urban Heritage”.

Paula Tavares de Carvalho is a Hospitality Programs Coordinator, she has been teaching Hospitality Management and she is an executive director in an Agrotourism project. She has a long professional career as a top management executive with experience in multinational companies, involved in multicultural projects at European, Asian, and African markets. Doctor degree in Management, Certificated Trainer, and Researcher at BRU (Business Research Unit) of ISCTE-IUL.

Tasneem Binte Morshed is a Marie-Curie and European Union co-funded Marti-Franques PhD Fellow at Universitat Rovira I Virgili, Spain. Prior to joining the programme, she was teaching Marketing Research and Marketing Analytics as Lecturer at North South University in Bangladesh for two years (May 2019-May 2021). She is currenty working her on research project “Female travelers in the age of social media”. She pursued her MSc degree in Consumer Analytics and Marketing Strategy from the University of Leeds, United Kingdom in 2018. She obtained her Bachelor of Business Administration (BBA) degree having dual major in Marketing and International Business from North South University, Bangladesh. She has immense research interest in tourism, business analytics, big data, digital marketing, machine learning and consumer behaviour.

Szu Yin Liu is currently is a PhD student at the School of Architecture, Tsinghua University, China. Her research interests are focused on urban studies, architecture, and festival studies.

Julia M. Warden is an undergraduate student at the University of Notre Dame in Indiana, United States, where she is pursuing degrees in Business Analytics and Film. She is the Treasurer of the Themed Entertainment Association at Notre Dame and looking to expand her experience in the industry internationally. Her research focuses on East Asian theme parks and intellectual properties and cross-cultural connections with American brands.

Professor Yasuhiro Watanabe is the head of the Tourism, Hospitality and Entertainment Business Programme at J.F. Oberlin University in Tokyo, Japan. Before entering the academia, Watanabe served in the tourism business for over fifteen years. For his rich experience in business, he is also a constant speaker at various industry meetings and seminars and is one of the few Japanese researchers that can link the academia with the real world. Professor Watanabe’s recent book on tour guiding (“How to Become a Top Tour Guide”, published 2020 in Japanese) is still the best seller.

Dr. Chemli has more than 16 years of international teaching and research experience in the Hospitality and Tourism Industry. Prior to her current role with the University of Deusto (Spain), she was the Director of Graduate Programs in Hospitality and Tourism, and Head of the Academic Committee (Woosong University, South Korea); Associate Professor and Director of the Master in Hospitality and Tourism (University of la Manouba, Tunisia); and Guest Professor (University College Birmingham, UK).

She is also an expert in Hospitality and Tourism, with extensive experience and a consistent track record of leading companies, managing cross-business teams, providing leadership and consulting services.

Willy Engelbrecht (Ph.D) is the Dean of Research and Postgraduate Studies at The Independent Institute of Education situated in South Africa. Willy is an active researcher and focuses on topics related to tourism, supply chain, educational management and leadership, higher education, and management.

Iva has experience in using a variety of interdisciplinary methods and approaches in her research work, as evidenced by more than 30 publications (papers and books). Iva has over 10 years of teaching and mentoring activities at all levels.
Areas of interest: Sustainable Tourism Management, Tourists Satisfaction, Destination Management, Tourism Marketing, Aviation and Tourism

James Hanrahan (BA, MSc, PhD) has worked as a tour guide, tour operator, tourism manager, tourism entrepreneur, tourism consultant and lecturer in Ireland, New Zealand, Hawaii, Bulgaria, California, and Britain. He is currently a lecturer in Tourism Management in the School of Business and Social Science at ATU Sligo and he continues to work for the public and private sectors in tourism planning and development. He has a key set of publications related to sustainable destination management and an established track record in research supervision at PhD level.

Natnisha Kongtaveesawas (PhD. Candidate, Technopreneurship and Innovation Management, Graduate School Chulalongkorn University, Thailand). With more than 18 years of Tourism and Hospitality experience, now the Ms.Natnisha has shifted her career into Head of Corporate Talent Development & Management. Her research interest has been focused mainly on Wellness Tourism.

Ph.D. candidate in Department of Marketing and Tourism Management,National Chiayi University, Taiwan. His research interests include tourism management, leisure management and tourists’ behavior management.

Anita has worked across a broad spectrum of the tourism industry and developed a keen interest in sustainable destination management to mitigate climate change.

Anita graduated from ITSligo with a first-class BSc (Hons) in Tourism with Event Management and is currently completing her doctoral research project at ATU Sligo.

The project aims to generate baseline findings on Irish tourism emissions to enable tourism policymakers and planners to establish evidence-based decarbonisation strategies.