Institute News Main Headline

IFTM scholars honoured to again be awarded with ‘Best Paper’ awards in TRMC 2022

IFTM has presented a total of 12 research papers in The 4th International Tourism and Retail Service Management Conference 2022.
中文摘要 / Summary in Chinese

The 4th International Tourism and Retail Service Management Conference 2022 is a two-day virtual conference and was successfully held on 19 & 20 October, 2022. The conference focused on international tourism and retail service management research and featured compelling guest lectures from industry thought leaders and presentations from top researchers and students from around the world.

The theme of TRMC 2022 is ‘Emerging from turbulent times: Global adaptions in tourism and retailing services’, comprises a timely range of topics on industry evolution and resilience, including tourism and retail challenges, customer motivations and experiences, industry innovations, marketing trends, as well as COVID-19-specific impacts and solutions. Researchers, graduate students and industry professionals from around the world are invited to share and discuss research and findings on these important topics that are shaping the future of tourism, retail and service management.

IFTM scholars have taken an active part in the conference, enthusiastically participated and fully demonstrated their confidence and elegance in such an international platform! Some academics of the Institute worked together with other scholars from higher education institutions outside Macao to conduct research papers, meanwhile, some of them have participated in several paper presentations. Our Institute has presented a total of 12 research papers in this conference, among which, both research papers ‘Going to a cool destination: What is and how tourists perceive cool destinations’ reported by Mr. Ford, Chong Fo Li, Dr. Henrique Fátima Boyol Ngan and another scholar from Tsinghua University; ‘Themed casino shopping malls: Hedonic shopping value and share of wallet’ reported by Dr. Catherine, Zhou Li along with a research scholar from Sun Yat-Sen University won the best paper award of the conference.

In the award-winning paper contributed by the team of Mr. Lei and Dr. Henrique, the researchers highlighted the current marketing in tourism and hospitality have borrowed the concept of coolness to advertise products and services, of which the study aims to examine and clarify what it is to be a cool destination. By taking a qualitative approach, to verbalise participants’ thoughts and experiences on previous purchases or encounters with cool products and brands that may be subjected to biases and cognitive errors. Otherwise, by using quantitative methods to engage participants in scenarios that are fictitious and hypothetical, that consumers may not easily relate to, posing threats to the ecological validity of the findings.

The awarded paper co-conducted by Dr. Catherine brought up the research gap showing a lack of attention to how themed casino shopping mall related attributes shape tourist value perceptions. The paper aims to address the referencing research voids by integrating a model based on hedonic theory and by articulating how service environment, assortment, and location of themed integrated shopping malls relate to behavioural responses regarding share of wallet, through hedonic shopping value.

Scholars of IFTM have put in their best effort, presenting rich and cutting-edge content in the conference. They strived to bring together and exchange their experiences and findings far and wide to all leading academics, researchers and scholars all over the world. TRMC 2022 provides a premier interdisciplinary platform for researchers, practitioners and educators to present and discuss recent innovations, trends, concerns encountered, and solutions utilised in this field. This is vital in research endeavours as global adaptions are increasingly prone to an era of tourism and retailing services.

The coming fifth TRMC 2023 is announced to be hosted by IFTM, in partnership with University of South Carolina’s College of Hospitality, Retail and Sport Management (USA), Sunway University (Malaysia), Nankai University (China), Breda University of Applied Science (The Netherlands) and Zhejiang University City College (China).

President’s Corner

A special place

IFTM’s unique positioning means students have access to a deep pool of exclusive opportunities, including exchange and internship programmes outside Macao, allowing them to be exposed to new ideas, and to broaden their horizons. Read More