Following the successful 1st International Conference on Business, Economics, Management, and Sustainability (BEMAS) in July 2021, the Centre for International Trade and Business in Asia (CITBA) at James Cook University-Australia at the College of Business, Law, and Governance at James Cook University is pleased to announce the 2nd International BEMAS conference on 1-3 July 2022. CITBA aims to create a platform for academics, researchers, practitioners and students to share their research findings with other global experts.

• When: 1-3 July 2022
• Where: Cairns, Queensland, Australia Plus Online
• Abstract submission opens: 1 October 2020
• Abstract submission deadline: 20 December 2021
• Notification on abstracts: 10 Jan 2022
• Full paper submission: 24 March 2022
• Review Process: 24 March - 24 April 2022
• Notification of Acceptance: 25 April 2022
• Early Bird registration deadline: 07 May 2022
• Final papers due: 31 May 2022

for more information, scan the QR Code

We are pleased to share that the Theme and the Tracks of BEMAS 2022 are announced.

Theme:

Re-imagining Economic Resilience and Urban Futures in Post-COVID 19 Era

Tracks:

1. Urban Mobility and Health Economic Benefits
2. Entrepreneurship, Knowledge Economy & Resilience
3. Intra and Peri-Urban Agriculture & Food Security
4. Resilience and Recovery Strategies for Urban Tourism
5. Digital Transformation & Re-shaping Urban Futures
6. The Digital Economy: Opportunities and Threats
7. New Frontiers in Interactive Marketing
8. Sustainable Management: the Role of University-Industry Cooperation

Conference Proceeding and Publication Opportunities

Upon successfully completing the double-blind peer-review process, accepted papers will be published in one of the associated journals (based on suitability and scope).

Journal of Resilient Economies (JRE)

(published by James Cook University, Platinum Open Access, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License)

Bulletin of Applied Economics (BAE)

(Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List , Indexed by EconLit, IDEAS and EconPapers- Open Access)

International Journal of Tourism Cities (IJTC)

(Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List, ECSI indexed)

Journal of Research in Interactive Marketing (JRIM)

(Australian Business Deans Council (ABDC) Journal Quality List, ECSI indexed, Scopus)

Industry and Higher Education (SAGE Journal)

(Indexed in Scopus, ECSI indexed by Clarivate Analytics)

Journal of Public Space (JPS)

(Partner with UN-Habitat, Open Access, Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License)

We are pleased to announce that the publication of BEMAS 2021 with Springer is well underway. The proceeding is aimed to be published in November 2021.

Proceeding Title: Community Empowerment, Sustainable Cities, and Transformative Economies
ISBN: 978-981-16-5260-8_34
Editors: Taha Chaiechi, Jacob Wood
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-16-5260-8

Call for Papers: December Issue - Enhancing Private and Public Sectors Contributions to Building Resilience

The twenty-first century has witnessed widespread global financial and public health crises. These crises adversely affected businesses, communities, and economies globally, resulting in social and economic disruptions. In a global-scale emergency such as the COVID-19 pandemic, even strong economies demonstrated a lack of resilience and adaptive capacity. Equally, for businesses and communities, the impacts of these shocks have evidenced the need to pivot thinking, repurpose resources and be resilient. The effect of these crises is extended to industries, occupations, and livelihoods.

Building economic resilience requires efforts and collaboration from both the public and private sectors. The private sector, spanning small and medium enterprises to national and multinational enterprises and academic institutions, has a wealth of knowledge and assets that could be productively channelled to improve resilience during natural disasters and public health emergencies. The private sector's resilience, responsiveness, and ingenuity are essential pre-, during and post-crisis to reduce risk, provide agility, and reduce response time and cost. Furthermore, the collaboration between the public and private sectors can help leverage the allocation of resources, knowledge spillover, and dynamics to ensure communities can prepare for, endure, and recover from disasters.

For December Issue 2021, We welcome review papers, conceptual papers, full-length papers, research notes and editorials.

List of potential research topics (non-exhaustive) for December Issue:

• Public-Private partnerships and infrastructure resilience
• Leadership for urban resilience
• Food security and economic resilience
• Organisational resilience and marketing strategy
• Risk management and economic resilience
• Business models, sustainable innovation and resilience

Manuscript submission information:

Papers targeting the special issue should be submitted through the JRE submission system. Submission guidelines can be found at the Journal's Information for Authors.

Important dates

Submission system opens: 1^st September 2021

Deadline for submissions: 15 November 2021

Local responses to the big economic challenges

Associate Professor Taha Chaiechi (right) with Dr Scott Davis, before his co-presentation on 'Business and the smart green capital'.

An international conference hosted by James Cook University this week holds special relevance for regional and vulnerable communities.

The International Conference on Business, Economics, Management and Sustainability (BEMAS) will look beyond orthodox economics to consider approaches that might better suit particular communities.

“When we look for ways to survive and thrive in the face of risks such as climate change and a global pandemic, we need to move beyond a one-response-fits-all approach,” conference chair Associate Professor Taha Chaiechi said.

“This is particularly important for vulnerable and at-risk communities, which tend to be more susceptible to external risks such as natural disasters and public health emergencies.

“On the positive side, each community has particular assets and potential that it can bring to bear on these challenges. To achieve sustainable development we need to identify the untapped skills and knowledge that each community can use to adapt to or overcome the challenges they face,” she said.

This conference follows on from the successful Urban Thinkers Campus event, which JCU hosted in Cairns in 2019.

“At that pre-COVID event, we brought together national, international and local thinkers to share ideas about the urban space,” Dr Chaiechi said. “Of course for people in our region that included discussion of how to plan for the tropics, how to cool our urban spaces, and how smaller regional centres can grow without losing the things we love about our communities.”

This year’s conference will follow the themes of community empowerment, sustainable cities and transformative economies.

BEMAS is hosted by JCU’s Centre for International Trade and Business in Asia and is underway at the University’s Nguma-bada campus in Smithfield.

Contacts

media enquiries: linden.woodward@jcu.edu.au

Our CITBA researcher Dr SImona Azzali chaired a panel discussion session for the launch of a book titled: Predatory Urbanism - The Metabolism of Megaprojects in Asia - by Agatino Rizzo and Anindita Mandal and published by Edward Elgar as part of their Cities Series.

The book launch discussed pressing challenges facing contemporary cities in the Global South and also aimed to address the complex interrelationships between city making and all the resources needed for its design, implementation and production.

The session, chaired by Simona Azzali, was an open debate in which the speakers reflected on the various issues treated in the book, with discussions led by the two authors of the volume, Agatino Rizzo and Anindita Mandal, and leading experts on urbanization and city-making in the Global South: Alessandro Melis, Natalie Koch and Vadim Rossman.

The session was part of the collateral events of the 2021 architecture Venice Biennale and was streamed on the Facebook Page Resilient Communities_Venezia

1- Book of Abstracts and Authors Index:

ISBN: 978-0-6486803-8-3 (published in-house at JCU)

2- Conference Proceeding:

Book title: Community Empowerment, Sustainable Cities, and Transformative Economies(published by Springer Nature)

Other outputs:

Accepted Abstracts: 54

Accepted Full Papers: 39Presentations: 52

Authors: 120+

Industry Presentations: 8  (including 3 international)

Professor Stephen Boyle inspiring talk about creative place-makings. Impact of generations in Jazz Phenomenon in Mount Gambier. Can we create a similar phenomenon in our tropical cities in North Queensland to positively impact our economy and communities?

Drawing on more than four decades as a leading commentator on international trade, Professor Sir David Greenaway will consider future scenarios for the global economy in a post-COVID environment. The talk will examine the extent of economic impact from the pandemic and the relative capacity of regions to rebound, based on vaccination protection, the resilience of international supply chains and the capacity for government intervention to drive economic recovery. Professor Sir David will also examine the particular case of ASEAN and the lessons that can be learned from previous global dislocations.

Moderator: Mr Neil Parekh

Partner & Head of Asia, Australia and New Zealand, Tikehau Capital

Preparation is underway for the big event of the year. We are pleased to exhibit our new conference banner. Thanks to the JCU design marketing team.

We are pleased to announce that BEMAS conference this year includes a series of presentations by a number of JCU doctoral and HDR students. These doctoral students are the first authors of accepted peer-reviewed papers/abstracts who will share their ongoing research work throughout the conference. The presentations cover a broad range of topics, including (but not limited to): empowering communities, resilient economies, migration, tourism, sustainable marketing, and low-carbon future. Don’t miss out on this unique opportunity to engage with these bright-minded researchers.

We are pleased to enclose the final copy of the conference program. As you will note in the program, password protected Zoom links are organised for remote participants (those not based in Cairns). you can access the program here.

Economics for recovery and sustainability: Read  A/Prof  Taha Chaiechi's interview with the Cairns Local News about the important mission that  BEMAS Conference is determined to achieve.

Sugiharti, D., Chaiechi, T., Pryce, J. (2021). The Role Of Visitor's Resilience In Understanding Tourism Resilience: A Conceptual Framework. In P. Jose, M. Sigala, P. Whitelaw, and I. Ye (Eds). Transformations in Uncertain Times: Future Perfect In Tourism, Hospitality and Events. Proceeding of the 31^st Annual CAUTHE Conference, PP 476-480, ISBN 978-0-9945141-5-8

Abstract:

Previous studies on tourism resilience have only focused on tourism organisations and operators, ignoring the resilience of tourists (local and foreign). This paper proposes a novel conceptual framework to a holistic conceptualisation of tourism resilience by incorporating traveller's resilience in the sphere of tourism resilience, urging researchers to re-evaluate the existing approaches to resilience thinking in tourism theories, frameworks, and models.

Keywords: tourism resilience, visitors’ experiences, visitors’ resilience

Dr Breda McCarthy and Associate Professor Penghi Wang spoke about their cross-cultural research on food waste on Seven News (Townsville and Regional Queensland) on the 15^th June.  The interview was based on a study entitled, ‘To Be Ethical or to Be Good? The Impact of Good Provider and Moral Norms on Food Waste Decisions in Two Countries’ which was recently published in the journal, Global Environmental Change. One of the key findings of this study was that ‘good provider norms’ suppress intentions to avoid food waste in Australia. In other words, a primary norm, such as the desire to have lots of fresh, healthy food in the home and provide for the immediate family, appears to override a secondary norm, such as the moral concern about food waste. Solutions include raising awareness about the consequences of food waste for the family, encouraging food shoppers to be more mindful of their food planning and shopping behaviours and the psychological drivers of over-provisioning for family and guests.

A photo/screenshot of the media interview can be accessed here:

https://twitter.com/7NewsTownsville/status/1404717887751823361/video/1

We are very excited to introduce to you Professor Stephen Boyle, one of our fantastic keynote speakers at the upcoming CITBA conference event. Professor Boyle is the Dean of the College of Business, Law and Governance James Cook University. Prior to that, Stephen was Dean- Academic at the University of South Australia Business School. Professor Boyle studied with cultural economist Professor David Throsby examining the economics of symphony orchestras in Australia. He won the best paper in the Economic Papers journal in 2012 for his work on productivity analysis of symphony orchestras. In this short video teaser, Professor Boyle introduces you to his keynote topic around the critical role arts and culture play in developing the identity and economies of cities.

Link to video: https://youtu.be/cyzyHSU0aug

Community-led Adaptation and Innovation Strategies of Remote Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Communities in Northern Australia

Our remote Indigenous communities are truly World-leaders in environmentally sustainable innovation and adaptation. In this presentation, Dr Chris McLaughlin of Culturev8 will host an experienced panel of Indigenous Mayors from the most remote corners of Northern Australia, who together will share their experiences and strategies in combating natural disasters and climate change as well as tackling the constant threats to health, safety and the wellbeing of residents.

We are excited to advise that this year the conference dinner will be held at MOKU Bar and restaurant located within NOVOTEL CAIRNS OASIS RESORT. Our keynote delegates will receive one complimentary dinner ticket and a complimentary welcome drink. Other delegate types can purchase a dinner ticket that includes one complimentary welcome drink (house beer, wine, soft drink or juice). Our registration Chair, Ms Diana Castorina, will be in touch with our participants shortly regarding collecting RSVP for the conference dinner.

We are pleased to announce that in the upcoming CITBA Conference on 2-3 July , Sally Mlikota FRCSA - Director CBC Staff Selection , President- Cairns Chamber of Commerce, and Dr Scott Davis - Independent Director of My Pathway and Advisor to The Cairns Institute, JCU will talk about "Business and the Smart Green Capital, Leading Place-based Economic Transformation". They will explain how to diversify and transform our region's economic drivers through empowering SMEs and the private sector.

We are pleased to announce that in the upcoming CITBA Conference in 2-3 July Dr Chris McLaughlin will lead a panel of experienced Indigenous Mayors from the most remote corners of Northern Australia to discuss how Indigenous communities are leading examples in environmentally sustainable innovation and adaptation practices. Register today!

The Boutique Lifestyle & Luxury Association (BLLA) and James Cook University, Singapore Partnership Initiative aims to invigorate a continuous exchange between industry and academic institutions to benefit the integration of intellectual ideas and professional practice. In this regard, we are pleased to announce a webinar hosted by CITBA and invite your participation. The detail and registration link are found in the attachment.

Topic: A Sustainable Lifestyle and Luxury Tourism is the Perfect Strategy for Future Pandemics

Time: Friday, 30 April 2021, 8am – 9:15am Singapore Time, 10am – 11.15am AEST, Thursday, 29 April 2021, 4pm – 5.15 pm Pacific Standard Time

This event is organized by JCUS Tourism Studies Group and the JCU Singapore Business School in partnership with BLLA.

When: 20 May 2021, 5pm -- 6pm Location:Online Webinar

China has one of the fastest growing and largest digital economies in the world. China’s digital platforms such as Alibaba, Tencent and Baidu engage with billions of internet users across a number of routine tasks from travelling, ordering food, banking, payment, retail shopping and many more. In this talk, Professor Alain Chong will share with the audience the evolution of digital economy in China, while presenting innovative business models by Chinese tech firms inspired by the most recent digital technologies. He will also offer some future trends in the Chinese digital economy and how attendees can learn from China’s digital revolution.

Moderated by:

Mr Christopher Warren

Managing Director, Accenture

Webinar time

5:00 pm GMT+8 (Singapore)

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

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