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This paper aims to provide answers to the question: “What innovations would enable the tourism and hospitality industry to re-build?”.

At the outset, it redefines the concept of ‘Innovation” in the context of the hospitality and tourism industry. It then focuses on post-pandemic re-building best practices in tourism and hospitality. It captures the essence of the articles in this theme issue collection on innovative actions from around the world and presents concluding remarks.

This article summarises the key findings of this theme issue and it draws generalized conclusions about re-building the tourism and hospitality industry. In conclusion, 14 key learning outcomes are presented. These include topics such as: rethinking tourism and hospitality products and services, sustaining resilience, collaboration between the government, academia and industry, special interest tourism, domestic tourism, crisis management, digital transformation, the health and safety of all stakeholders, operational efficiencies and environmental sustainability.

This research contributes to the emerging research theme of tourism and hospitality post-pandemic re-building.

There are a number of practical implications in terms of industry approaches to the adoption of innovative strategies to re-build tourism and hospitality operations around the world.

Readers who are interested in international best practices of hospitality and tourism should find this concluding article of interest.

In an effort to understand the base differences between tourism and hospitality academic programmes, it is important to understand their philosophical relationships. Different types of philosophies will give rise to different orientations. The differential orientations often lead to conflicts. These conflicts are not usually understood in terms of basic philosophical differences, but are seen as a perceptual distinction. This translates to the real world in that many tourism and hospitality professionals have strong feelings about each other that lead to professional misunderstandings. These differences in philosophy also have important ramifications for curricula, course structure, or the instructional philosophies. The purpose of this article is to examine the philosophical relationships between tourism and hospitality academic programmes and their implications, especially for curricular design. This type of philosophical modelling will help obtain a better perspective on the design of courses that have a general thematic structure to improve the preparations programmes in tourism and hospitality.

The purpose of this paper is to present a briefing on milestones of Malaysia Centre of Tourism and Hospitality Education (MyCenTHE) regarding its role as a nation-building exercise in developing human capital talent for future sustainable hospitality and tourism in Malaysia. Under a national initiative by the ministry of education, hospitality and tourism educational institutes in the country have set out to better prepare graduates for industry. MyCenTHE aspires to build a hospitality and tourism cluster (threefold) so that Malaysia is able to increase its annual output of hospitality and tourism personnel from 20,000 in 2009 to 50,000 in 2020 and increase the share of graduates with diploma- or degree-level awards from 13% to 50% by 2020. These expectations can only be achieved by creating a sustainable pool of workers for this sector. It was in this context for which “MyCenTHE” was conceived.

The current study is based on documentary analysis of secondary sources, qualitative in nature, and presents a case study of MyCenTHE with its key accomplishments in promoting hospitality and tourism education in Malaysia.

The hospitality and tourism industry in Malaysia is set to create 600,000 new job opportunities and in so doing, will need many more skilled, work-ready graduates in the coming decade. This paper highlights the collective efforts of the private higher education sector together with some selected public institutions (polytechnics) under the umbrella of the ministry of education through the MyCenTHE platform in promoting hospitality and tourism education nationwide via national awareness campaigns, conferences, skill competitions, seminars, forums and corporate social responsibility projects.

This paper is of value in its own context and in particular support from ministry and related authorities, 26 institutions of higher education working together, approaches to hundreds of local schools and thousands of audiences/participants in awareness campaigns.

The purpose of this paper is to profile the Worldwide Hospitality and Tourism Themes theme issue “The way forward: how is Malaysian hospitality and tourism education working with industry?” with reference to the experiences of the theme editors and writing team.

Structured questions were used to enable the theme editors to reflect on the rationale for the theme issue question, the starting point, the selection of the writing team and material and the editorial process.

Malaysia’s hospitality and tourism industry is facing an acute shortage of skilled employees, accentuated by the fact that jobs in the industry are not broadly appealing to Malaysians.

The hospitality and tourism industry in Malaysia wants to employ graduates with a professional attitude and mindset, and to secure this objective, a greater focus on work-based learning is needed.

The paper draws on discussion and applied research to explore the hospitality and tourism industry–education collaboration in Malaysia and the ways in which employability and retention can be enhanced by a greater emphasis on work-based learning.

The purpose of this paper is to explore some of the ways in which hospitality and tourism education in Malaysia is working with the Malaysian Industry 4.0 framework.

A qualitative research approach was used to conduct 30 interviews with respondents working for academic institutions and local or foreign companies.

The analysis of data helped to identify themes relating to current foreign partnerships within this area of industry.

Through the resolution of this research question, specific recommendations for policymakers and stakeholders are made, which, if implemented, may facilitate further improvements in tourism and hospitality education in support of industry in Malaysia.

This cutting-edge short commentary is intended to raise awareness of sex trafficking in the tourism and hospitality industry. The purpose of this paper is to also advocate for further research to identify and hopefully prevent sex trafficking in related settings.

This paper provides a descriptive overview of the current knowledge base on sex trafficking in tourism and hospitality. Based on gaps in the literature, future research agendas and directions are suggested.

Academic research on sex trafficking in tourism and hospitality remains limited. More scholarly attention is needed to this matter. The tourism industry is directly and indirectly associated with sex trafficking (e.g. hotel accommodations and direct consumption of sexual services, such as through sex tourism). Despite legislative efforts by international government agencies to eradicate sex trafficking, the problem remains pervasive. Broader practice- and research-based intervention efforts are needed.

This short commentary advocates for tourism and hospitality researchers to make practical and theoretical industry contributions that may help prevent sex trafficking.

Amidst ongoing digital transformation, the current paper provides a 360-degree overview of technology-adoption in Tourism and Hospitality. By combining and consolidating a wide range of sources, mainly in the tourism literature, the analysis depicts how the complex technological ecosystem often enhances or hinders the successful adoption, integration and interoperability of different technologies.

The critical review method was used to assess, analyse and synthesise existing literature in the area of digitisation in tourism and hospitality. The critical review process included a thematic analysis of the literature, where recurring themes, patterns and trends were identified towards addressing the study’s research questions.

The analysis identifies current trends, opportunities, challenges and strategies for technology adoption in tourism and hospitality, the implications for theory, practicable executive directions and avenues for further research.

The paper’s main contribution lies in its comprehensive identification, consideration and incorporation of all primary contemporary technological elements, and the ensuing development of a corresponding conceptual charting framework, which illustrates a multifaceted process with practical implications for various stakeholders, including businesses, authorities, consumers and employees.

This study, a conceptual paper, analyses the growth of curation in tourism and hospitality and the curator role in selecting and framing products and experiences. It considers the growth of expert, algorithmic, social and co-creative curation modes and their effects.

Narrative and integrative reviews of literature on curation and tourism and hospitality are used to develop a typology of curation and identify different curation modes.

Curational techniques are increasingly used to organise experience supply and distribution in mainstream fields, including media, retailing and fashion. In tourism and hospitality, curated tourism, curated hospitality brands and food offerings and place curation by destination marketing organisations are growing. Curation is undertaken by experts, algorithms and social groups and involves many of destination-related actors, producing a trend towards “hybrid curation” of places.

Research is needed on different forms of curation, their differential effects and the power roles of different curational modes.

Curation is a widespread intermediary function in tourism and hospitality, supporting better consumer choice. New curators influence experience supply and the distribution of consumer attention, shaping markets and co-creative activities. Increased curatorial activity should stimulate aesthetic and stylistic innovation and provide the basis for storytelling and narrative in tourism and hospitality.

This is the first study of curational strategies in tourism and hospitality, providing a definition and typology of curation, and linking micro and macro levels of analysis. It suggests the growth of choice-based logic alongside service-dominant logic in tourism and hospitality.

This study aims to present the current state of published literature concerning halal tourism and hospitality studies.

This research discovered 314 Scopus documents from 2003 until 2023 regarding existing studies related to this field. The present study then used a bibliometric analysis of this data set. The present research analysed the documents' bibliographical data based on year, source title, country of origin, institution, authors, keywords and citations. Microsoft Excel, bibliometrix, Harzing's Publish or Perish and VOSviewer software applications were used to conduct a frequency analysis, evaluate the impact and map bibliometric networks regarding halal hospitality. This study has presented the evolution of publications in the research field by year, the top players in source titles, countries, institutions and authors. This paper also evaluated the intellectual structure of existing research concerning halal tourism and hospitality and presented the most influential documents in this field. There were 112.21 citations per year, 7.21 per paper and 3.14 authors per paper.

The findings revealed that the study trend concerning halal tourism and hospitality had attracted the attention of academics and developed into a significant field in 2016. Malaysia and Indonesia have been the major contributors to halal hospitality research, with the highest proportion of authors.

In general, this study also has limitations similar to other studies. The research data were derived solely from the Scopus database, which has the advantage of being the most comprehensive database indexing all scientific works, even though it does not easily cover all available sources.

The present research has differed from previous research in that it examined literature published in Scopus concerning research on halal hospitality from 2003 to 2022. It analysed bibliographic data by year, source title, country, institution, author, keywords and citations.

The main purpose of this article is to understand the motivations for Bhutanese students to study hospitality and tourism courses. The second objective is to analyse what countries are the preferred destinations for study abroad and visitation for students. This includes focussing on new course topic areas such as sustainability for business in hospitality and tourism courses.

A quantitative methodology approach was undertaken with two surveys administered to the first and second student intakes into the Bhutan Middle Management Hotel Program. Motivational and reasoned action theory form the basis of the theoretical framework to understand behavioural intentions regarding educational choices in hospitality and tourism courses.

The results of the surveys indicate that the main motivations to study hospitality and tourism are for attraction, career opportunities, status, broader benefits and aptitude. In addition, it was found that students studying hospitality and tourism in Bhutan are likely to stay in the sector for a long period of time thereby contributing to the economic and social development of Bhutan. Moreover, it was found that the United Nations Sustainable Development goals are increasingly being integrated into the tourism and hospitality sector, which is influencing students to study these topic areas.

The results of this study will help government and hospitality providers support educational training programs by focussing on new education topic areas. This study is limited to Bhutan.

The results of this study will help government and hospitality providers support educational training programs by focussing on new education topic areas such as sustainability for business management. This will enable hospitality and tourism providers in Bhutan to update their curriculum and to focus on emerging industry needs.

This is amongst the first studies on Bhutanese students motivations for studying hospitality and tourism. It will provide practical and policy advise about how to train workers in order to become less reliant on foreign training providers and the importance of integrating sustainability topics in course design.