In CITBA's first webinar event for 2021, we welcomed Mr Sreeram Iyer, global Chief Operating Officer for ANZ’s Corporate and Institutional Business, who provided a very insightful presentation on "The new www:// Work, Workplace, Workforce. The presentation was well received with some 50 attendees tuning in from India, Vietnam, Australia, China, and Singapore. The presentation laid out the challenges faced during the COVID pandemic and how ANZ had responded to the challenge. A big part of ‘navigating’ the future appears to be around the Digital transformation that is now at the forefront of ‘traditional’ banks like the ANZ and in the minds of our demanding customers.

How does urbanisation spur economic growth? According to traditional beliefs, increases in urban population have been linked to increased economic activity in cities. However, in reality; this relationship is far more complex.

Dr Taha Chaiechi, Associate Professor of Economics at James Cook University, and Australia Director for the Centre of International Trade and Business in Asia (CITBA) at JCU; Dr Caroline Wong, Associate Dean of Learning and Teaching, and Senior Lecturer in Business at James Cook University in Singapore – in collaboration with Dr Silvia Tavares, Lecturer in Urban Design and Town Planning at University of the Sunshine Coast – sought to explore the relationship between economic growth and indicators of urbanisation specifically within a tropical context. This focussed their attention on Singapore and Cairns.

Read the full media release here.

JRE is pleased to announce that it is now accepting articles for consideration for publication in July 2021 Issue. The deadline for full manuscript submission is 30 May 2021. See more information here.

Platinum Open Access and the Publication Fee

JRE is a Platinum Open Access journal, which means JRE does not charge either the readers or the authors. This ensures all accepted articles will be immediately and permanently available to readers free of charge.

Who funds this Journal?

Diana Castorina was invited to share her PhD research at PechaKucha Townsville Vol 26 event held on Thursday 25th February 2021. Pechakucha is one of the worlds fastest-growing platforms to share presentations in a simple and effective way for a diverse range of audiences. Presenters share a 20 slide presentation for 20 seconds of commentary for each slide. The organiser of the event, Dr Keith Noble, approached Diana after seeing her present at JCU's On Tap Inspiration in November 2020.

As a lead up to this PechaKucha event Diana was also invited on ABC North with Michael Clarke and Dr Keith Noble to share some highlights of her research and discuss the importance of researchers being able to communicate their findings with the wider community.

Dr. Janice Scarinci, Dr. Hera Oktadiana and Dr. Denis Tolkach were awarded $16,500 in the New Colombo Plan Mobility Grant on “Village Tourism in Indonesia”.  This is a collaborative project with JCU and Trisakti University in Indonesia.  Trisakti is one of the top tourism and hospitality school in Indonesia.  James Cook University (JCU) has developed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) with Trisakti in 2019 for JCU's new Bachelor of Tourism, Hospitality and Events Degree that began in 2020, and Business Degrees in the College of Business Law and Governance.

The objectives of this project meet the needs of the NCP by providing opportunities for a diverse group of JCU regional Australian students to study, work and live in Indonesia to learn and appreciate the language and culture of Indonesia and to promote Australian culture as well.  This proposed mobility project is for a 2-4 week language and cultural immersion program including opportunities for academic credit for an internship in five-star resorts at the JW Marriott, Ritz Carlton, Grand Hyatt and Pullman Hotels in Indonesia and language and cultural training with real-world experiences in the local villages to deepen the people to people and institutional relationships

The recording of CITBA panel discussion on the Future of Retailing is now available on YouTube. special thanks to our amazing panellists and our event moderator, Dr Malobi Mukherjee.

Watch the event here

World Women Tourism (WWT) Global Webinar Series  

The World Women Tourism (WWT), an organization connecting women tourism professionals, collaborated with JCU’s Dr. Jenny Panchal in launching the Philippines Edition of WWT’s Global Webinar Series titled Accelerating Women in the Philippines. Dr. Panchal spearheaded the organization and planning of the webinar, which was held on 4^th February 2021, Friday. The event attracted over 500 Filipinos, mostly women living in the Philippines and overseas.

The expert panel includes esteemed speakers Dr. Catheryn Khoo (Associate Professor, Griffith University), Former Undersecretary Alma Jimenez (Department of Tourism & President of ASEAN Society Philippines), Dir. Nelly Nita Dillera (Department of Trade & Industry-Philippine Trade Training Centre, DTI-PTTC) and Ms. Maria Christina Aquino (Chairwoman, Tourism Industry Board Foundation, Inc.). Dr Panchal and Dr Barkathunnisha (Co-Founder, WWT) moderated the webinar.

The goal of the GWS aims to support women in the tourism industry so that they may better approach the new disruptions that challenge their personal and professional lives. While the issues and challenges presented were specific to what Filipino women face in their country, the expert panel identified local programs, resources and combined them with global strategies, thus achieving WWT’s ‘glocal’ mission.

“Due to the impact of the ‘shecession’ it is critical to support women through the sharing of insights, resources and opportunities to facilitate innovation, capacity building and collaboration,” said Dr. Barkathunnisha, Co-Founder of WWT.

Apart from the attendees on Zoom, the webinar was live-streamed through DTI-PTTC’s Facebook Page which had over 1,000 viewers.

Dr Tang Chun Meng and Dr K Thirumaran worked closely with our partner university, Baden-Wuerttemberg Cooperative State University in Germany (DHBW) represented by Prof. Dirk Klimkeit as editors of the book “Service Excellence in Tourism & Hospitality Insights from Asia.” Today, customer satisfaction alone is not enough anymore in the tourism and hospitality industry in order to win the loyalty of guests. Instead, the industry need to achieve service excellence by delighting their guests with a set of drivers of excellence. Despite the relevance of the topic to the Asian tourism industry, the extant literature is scarce and fragmented. The 12 chapters in this book derive from a call for papers as well as from a study tour of Singapore and Malaysia. Papers went through a double-blind peer-review procedure. They comprise both conceptual and—in most cases—empirical papers, drawing on recent research in the Asian tourism and hospitality industry. This edited book sets out to examine what and how companies in the tourism and hospitality industry do to deliver a high level of service excellence. They span aspects including the design of services, managing customer-oriented operations, leveraging digital technology and managing resources.

Tang C.M., Klimkeit D. & Thirumaran K. eds. (2021) Service Excellence in Asian Tourism and Hospitality. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-57694-3_1