PHILADELPHIA (KYW Newsradio) — A free two-day virtual conference will be held in March discussing the future of tourism, hospitality and events.
It’s being called the Tourism, Hospitality & Events Global Higher Education Leadership Summit 2021, or "T.H.E. Summit."
Dr. Laurie Wu, an assistant professor of the department of tourism and hospitality management at Temple University, and the chair of the summit, said the platform will facilitate conversations among academia, industry as well as the general public, "who are passionate and enthusiastic and who care about our industry and its future."
"We are in this very difficult time," she said, "and we want to help our industry as (it) recovers post pandemic, but at the same time some of the topic sessions also transcend the pandemic, in a sense that we are really trying to be forward-looking."
Among the topics discussed will be industry relevance and innovation.
"How does that serve other industries to make new relevance, evolve the identity of ourselves? Such topics would have relevance not only during COVID times but as well as beyond," said Wu.
This is the first time the summit is being held, but Wu hopes it can become an annual event. "Hopefully down the road, we would be able to be offline, in person as we welcome more guests from around the globe to attend this even," she said.
The virtual summit will be held March 19-20. Registration is open at the official website.