About the Conference
Tourism Development and Sustainable Transformation
The 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development, adopted in 2015 after intensive negotiations, was a long overdue step to interdependently address two of the most urgent challenges in today’s world: sustainability and development. This agenda, which also addresses its structural causes and is based on human rights, is a critical and urgent call to action. Its pathbreaking title, “Transforming our World”, clearly rejects the idea of a passive business-as-usual approach. One of the critical transformative aspects is the ambition to reach the ‘furthest behind first’ and to leave no one behind. All countries committed to implementing the 2030 Agenda according to their respective challenges, underlining the urgent need for global action.
In tourism, the dividing lines run not only between developed and developing countries but also between people with the ability and resources to travel as tourists and those without. The 2030 Agenda offers a necessary perspective to focus on those billions of people who do not travel internationally, while many of them are affected by tourism. Tourism is an affluence-related phenomenon. Therefore, the tourism sector has a particular responsibility to do no harm and ensure that people, the environment, and our climate are not negatively affected. The SDGs can guide tourism development and practice, enabling the sector to play a better role in achieving the 2030 Agenda.
In light of this sustainable transformation theme and the broader goals of the 2030 Agenda, the following questions are proposed to guide discussions and actions in tourism development:
- Creating and fostering a holistic understanding of the tourism system, including its interrelated components and interactions.
- Stimulating and transforming collaboration and partnerships between various stakeholders, including governments, businesses, investors, and local communities, to drive sustainable tourism practices and development.
- Transforming the destination planning by promoting socio-economic diversity and resilience by reducing over-reliance on a particular sector.
- Mitigating various economic and geopolitical risks while enhancing resilience in tourism through strategic and responsible transformation.
- Involving local communities more inclusively and equitably to strengthen the tourism ecosystem, ensuring their active participation and benefit from transformation.
- Transforming and inspiring all stakeholders by creating life-changing experiences that prioritize people, planet, and prosperity.
- Identifying and responsibly transforming the uniqueness of cultural heritage, folklore, gastronomy, local landmarks, wildlife, and other destination resources and characteristics into resources for sustainable tourism.
- Implementing adequate natural resources, biodiversity management, and protection strategies for conservation and sustainable tourism.
- Safeguarding and transmitting local cultural heritage, traditions, wisdom, and knowledge from generation to generation through viable principles and sustainable practices supported by responsible transformative strategies and actions.
Objectives
The upcoming conference revolves around the frontier theme of “Tourism and Sustainable Transformation”. This pivotal platform brings together tourism scholars, researchers, practitioners, and students to explore the vital intersection between tourism and transformation, aiming to shape a better world. Presentations and discussions on different topics will commonly focus on building holistic understanding and fostering collaboration and partnerships across participants from various institutions and researchers. By examining best practices and sharing cutting-edge research, the conference aims to identify effective strategies for leveraging tourism policies, strategies, and practices to create sustainable tourism transformation.
More importantly, this conference can contribute to bridging the outcomes from several previous events in the series, such as the ones themed “Sustainable, Transformative and Regenerative Tourism” (2023), “Tourism & Sustainable Development Goals” (2019), “Sustainable Tourism and Development” (2017), among others and continue to create frontier knowledge sharing and transfer in the academia and stakeholders.
Conference Topics
The Conference Organizing Committee welcomes contributions to any topical areas in the field of tourism research and is particularly seeking contributions to the following areas:
Creating and fostering a holistic understanding of the tourism system, including its interrelated components and interactions.
Stimulating and transforming collaboration and partnerships between various stakeholders, including governments, businesses, investors, and local communities, to drive sustainable tourism practices and development.
Transforming the destination planning by promoting socio-economic diversity and resilience by reducing over-reliance on a particular sector.
Mitigating various economic and geopolitical risks while enhancing resilience in tourism through strategic and responsible transformation.
Involving local communities more inclusively and equitably to strengthen the tourism ecosystem, ensuring their active participation and benefit from transformation.
Transforming and inspiring all stakeholders by creating lifechanging experiences that prioritize people, planet, and prosperity.
Identifying and responsibly transform the uniqueness of cultural heritage, folklore, gastronomy, local landmarks, wildlife, and other destination resources and characteristics into resources for sustainable tourism.
Implementing adequate natural resources, biodiversity management, and protection strategies for conservation and sustainable tourism.
Safeguarding and transmitting local cultural heritage, traditions, wisdom, and knowledge from generation to generation through viable principles and sustainable practices supported by responsible transformative strategies and actions.
Your presentations can be based on a range of tourism forms:
History
Since 2012, the GRMD and the MSSST Programme of CUHK have organized thematic international conferences on sustainable tourism annually. These conferences have attracted well-known and reputable international tourism academics as keynote speakers, invited speakers, and presenters to share knowledge and exchange ideas. Apart from researchers and practitioners, students from international, regional, and local institutes have also attended the conferences to widen their learning scope and gain global perspectives on the development of the tourism industry. All participants have brought together novel ideas and empirical evidence surrounding sustainable tourism issues.
In the past years, we have successfully organized the following conferences:
The 2016 International Conference on Sustainable Tourism and Global-Local Understanding with 150 participants. Keynote speakers included Prof. Alan LEW (Northern Arizona University, U.S.A.), Prof. Amran HAMZAH (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia), Prof. Geoffrey WALL (University of Waterloo, Canada), Prof. Jaume GUIA (Universitat de Girona, Spain), Prof. Richard BUTLER (The University of Strathclyde, Glasgow, U.K.), and Prof. Trevor SOFIELD (University of Tasmania, Australia).
The 2017 International Conference on Sustainable Tourism and Development with 120 participants. Keynote speakers included Prof. Alan LEW (Northern Arizona University, U.S.A.), Prof. Amran HAMZAH (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia), Prof. Geoffrey WALL (University of Waterloo, Canada), Prof. Honggang XU (Sun Yat-Sen University, China), Prof. Jaume GUIA (Universitat de Girona, Spain), Prof. Philip Feifan XIE (The Macau University of Science and Technology, Macau, China), and Prof. T. C. CHANG (National University of Singapore, Singapore).
The 2018 International Conference on Sustainable Tourism and Innovation with 100 participants. Keynote speakers included Dr. Dora AGAPITO (University of Lincoln, U.K.), Prof. Amran HAMZAH (Universiti Teknologi Malaysia, Malaysia), and Prof. Geoffrey WALL (University of Waterloo, Canada).
The 2019 International Conference on Tourism and the Sustainable Development Goals with 100 participants. Keynote speakers included Prof. T. C. CHANG (National University of Singapore), Dr. Cristina Ortega NUERE (Ppen University of Catalonia, Spain; and World Leisure Organization), and Jarkko SAARINEN (University of Oulu, Finland).
The 2021 International Conference on Sustainable Tourism Development and Global Crises with 100 participants. Keynote speakers included Prof. Yingzhi GUO (Fudan University, China), Professor Perry HOBSON (Sunway University, Malaysia), Professor Mike PETERS (University of Innsbruck, Austria), and Professor Gabriela TIGU (Bucharest University of Economic Studies (ASE), Romania).
The 2022 International Conference on Sustainable Tourism for Inclusive Growth with 100 participants. Keynote speakers included Professor Simon DARCY (University of Technology Sydney, Australia) and Professor Trevor SOFIELD (University of Girona, Spain).
The 2023 International Conference on Sustainable, Transformative and Regenerative Tourism with 120 participants. Keynote speakers include Professor M. Kazem VAFADARI (Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University, Japan), Professor Stewart BARR (University of Exeter, UK), and Professor Honggen XIAO (The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong, China).
The 2024 International Conference on Tourism Development and Investment in Sustainability with 150 participants. Keynote speakers include Professor Gianna MOSCARDO (James Cook University, Australia), Professor Han SHEN (Fudan University, China), Professor Leonardo A. N. DIOKO (Macao University of Tourism, Macao, China), Professor Lisa WAN (CUHK, Hong Kong, China), and Ms. Lucia LOPOSOVA (GREEN Hospitality, Hong Kong, China).