Taylor's Sustainable Tourism Impact Lab, Centre for Research and Innovation in Tourism (CRiT) and School of Hospitality, Tourism and Events (SHTE) jointly organized five sessions on research which were conducted by the eminent Visiting Scholars - Emeritus Professor Dr. Jafar Jafari from University of Wisconsin-Stout, USA and Dr. Raymond Rastegar from University of Queensland, Australia. The two-day event involved five knowledge-sharing and extensive discussion sessions on the following topics:-
Tourism and Justice: Trends and Future Research Agenda
Writing an International Grant Proposal
1-to-1 Session for Joint Publication
Future of Tourism (Post-COVID) Bridging Theory and Practice in Tourism and Hospitality
Qualitative Research Methods Workshop for Social Sciences
During the session by Dr. Raymond Rastegar on the topic of “Tourism and Justice: Trends and Future Research Agenda”, he covered on the Justice discourse in tourism, the conceptualization of justice informing multispecies justice in tourism research and practice. He shared about the different goals, decision making and lack of collaboration from his published article titled “Tourism and Justice: Rethinking the Role of Governments,” Annals of Tourism Research. He highlighted that the importance of moving from Human Centered Tourism to Planet (human & non-human) Centered Tourism as well as shared about his recent published article proposing the justice framework to guide tourism recovery using four principles of justice namely Recognition Justice, Procedural Justice, Distributive Justice and Restorative Justice.
The second session focused on “Writing an International Grant Proposal” whereby two Academic teams from School of Hospitality, Tourism & Events (SHTE) led by Dr. Chia Kei Wei and Assoc. Prof. Dr. Kandappan Balasubramanian with their team members Prof. Dr. Ahmad Bin Shuib, Dr. Rupam Konar, Dr. Thanam Subramaniam, Dr. Nagathisen Katahenggam, Dr. Stephanie Chuah Hui Wen, Dr. Tee Lee Hong, and Dr. Ellie Chee Shi Yin shared their proposal ideas. After sharing their ideas, the Visiting Scholars extended their ideas into extensive discussion covering various parameters and advised the Tourism Academic team to focus the research grants on the impact of tourism on forest resources/community, agriculture-fishery-government collaborating with the national government and international funding, innovation/technology for community/tourism development and writing policy paper for the ASEAN regions through The World Tourism Organization (UNWTO). Whereas, the Hospitality Academic team to focus on water management, technology and innovation to benefit the hospitality industry.
A “1-to-1 Session for Joint Publication” with Dr. Raymond Rastegar allowed the interested participants to discuss joint publication with Dr. Raymond Rastegar which involved in-depth discussion of title and abstracts. His research focuses on sustainable tourism development in developing countries with a specific interest in local community livelihood, participation, empowerment, and environmental conservation.
A session entitled "Future of Tourism (Post-COVID) Bridging Theory and Practice in Tourism and Hospitality" with Emeritus Professor Dr. Jafar Jafari covered tourism's road mapping (ups and downs) by sharing his personal journey since the 80's and his major contributions to the tourism industry. He also focused on tourism intelligence, hospitality and tourism industry – knowledge bank and concept of putting theory into practice. In addition, he highlighted the evolution of the tourism industry, especially after World War II and stressed the importance of the tourism industry and lessons learned during/after COVID-19. He shared the major gap in-between theory and practice in the hospitality and tourism industry by introducing his book series "Bridging Tourism Theory and Practice" with Emerald. https://www.emerald.com/insight/publication/issn/2042-1443.
As an outcome of the session, the book entitled "Theory and Practice in Hospitality and Tourism Research: An ASEAN Context" will be edited under Prof. Jafari's book series by Co-editor Dr. Jeetesh Kumar and Dr. Rupam Konar, Senior Lecturers from SHTE. The proposed book will focus on case studies from ASEAN countries having joint contributions by academia, practitioners and policymakers.
“Qualitative Research Methods Workshop for Social Sciences” by Dr. Raymond Rastegar was a hybrid session with 85 students from various discipline. This session was moderated by Dr. Rupam Konar from SHTE. Dr. Raymond initiated the session with his philosophical stands on the research approach of qualitative. More specifically, his presentation highlighted on what is research question; defining focus through the research questions; and developing research questions. He further used an interesting technique of "Elevator Story" to engage all participants to write and explain their own research questions. Dr. Raymond furthered the session by highlighting the common features of qualitative research approach. Finally, the session concluded with a fruitful 45-minute of Q&A session where participants shared their experiences, ideas and methodology-related challenges.