Tourism | Three universities hold forum for Greater Bay Area

Three tourism education institutions from Macau, Hong Kong and mainland China banded together yesterday to host the Greater Bay Area Collective Tourism Research Forum, designed with the purpose of defining a collaborative research agenda for tourism stakeholders in the area.

The single-day forum, organized by Macau’s Institute for Tourism Studies’ (IFT) Tourism Research Centre, the School of Tourism Management, Sun Yat-sen University, and the School of Hotel and Tourism Management, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, attracted a total of 110 participants, according to a statement from the IFT. They included government officials, industry executives and members of various community interest groups.

The forum comprised two sessions, with the first consisting of short statements delivered by the three co-chairs of the forum and the second inviting participants to split into smaller groups and discuss the issues and challenges in more detail.

According to the IFT statement, the host of the event and president of the institution, Fanny Vong, delivered her welcome remarks, underscoring the need for tourism and hospitality stakeholders in the Greater Bay Area to work together and coordinate much needed research.

Much of the forum’s discussion centered on several key topics for further research, namely: the long-
term impacts of tourism activity in the area; the sustainability of the sector; balanced tourism development on both sides of the Pearl River Delta; the impact of large infrastructure projects, such as the Hong Kong-Zhuhai-Macau Bridge; and the creation of joint destination branding, image and marketing of the Greater Bay Area.