“Smart Tourism Symposium 2023: Leading through Impactful Research” was successfully held

On August 15th, the “Smart Tourism Symposium 2023: Leading through Impactful Research” was successfully held by the Asia-Pacific Academy of Economics and Management (APAEM) and co-hosted by Faculty of Business Administration (FBA) of the University of Macau (UM). The symposium aimed to promote and stimulate the application and development of digitized innovations in tourism, hospitality, and other industries, with a specific focus on the development trend of the tourism industry in Macao in the areas of Big Data and Artificial Intelligence. The event featured three internationally renowned scholars as guest speakers, who shared their insightful research and explored the latest achievements and development in the field of Smart Tourism. The symposium attracted over 80 postgraduate students, researchers and faculty members, both online and offline.

The symposium featured presentations by Prof. Gang Li, Professor in School of Information Technology of Deakin University, Dr. Quan Vu, Senior Lecturer in Deakin Business School of Deakin University, and Prof. Ziqiong Zhang, Professor in School of Management of Harbin Institute of Technology, then followed by a Q&A session moderated by Prof. Rob Law, Deputy Director of APAEM. The presentations by the guest speakers showcased their profound insights of smart tourism. The scholars shared their insightful research findings on the utilization of AI-based approaches, such as machine learning and deep learning, in tourism demand forecasting, scenery image recognition, and online review analytics. Following the symposium, both the speakers and the audience actively engaged in discussions on related issues and the future of smart tourism, both online and offline. The participants greatly benefited from these meaningful and impactful discussions and witnessed the innovative development and vitality of Smart Tourism in the post-COVID tourism recovery.