International e-Symposium on Tourism held at IUBAT

Two Days International e-Symposium on Current Issues in Tourism from 16-17 October 2020 organized by The College of Tourism and Hospitality Management of IUBAT—International University of Business Agriculture and Technology has ended successfully. Assistant Professor of CTHM and the Coordinator of the e-Symposium organizing committee Md Yusuf H Khan has informed us in a press note that world’s top most tourism scholars from 5 continents and 13 countries ( Prof. Dr. Colin Michael Hall from New Zealand, Prof. Dr. DimitriosBuhalis from UK, Prof. Dr. CihanCobanoglu from USA, Prof. Dr. Noel Scott from Australia, Prof. Dr. Sari Lenggogenifrom Indonesia, Prof. Dr. Alfonso Vargas Sanchez from Spain, Prof. Dr. Erdogan Ekiz from Morocco, Prof. Dr. Yana Wengel from China, Prof. Dr. MichailToanoglou from South Korea, Prof. Dr. Celia Ramos from Portugal, Prof. Dr. AysenErcanIstin from Turkey and Prof. Dr. Jeet Dogra from India) has delivered their thoughts based on the research and theoretical studies at the Two Days e-Symposium on different current issues in tourism including sustainable tourism, ICT applications in tourism, pandemics and tourism: Opportunities and challenges, destination branding and crisis, destination development for tourism cities, smart and ambient intelligent tourism, overtourism in outdoor spaces and halal tourism. Mr. Shahid Hamid, Chairman of PATA Bangladesh Chapter and Mr. Al Amin, General Manager of Six Seasons Hotel Dhaka also presented their thoughts as industry experts at the e-Symposium.

284 participants from 34 countries and 6 different continents have participated at the different sessions on the e-Symposium. The honorable Vice Chancellor of International University of Business Agriculture and Technology, Prof. Dr. AbdurRab inaugurated the e-Symposium as Chief Guest and Prof. Dr. Hamida Akhtar Begum, Pro-VC of IUBAT delivered a guest of honor speech. At the beginning of the session, Coordinator of CTHM Assistant Professor Farzana Al Ferdous welcomed all the participants and speakers on her welcome speech and the Chair of CTHM Mr. Shaikh Ershad Hossain spoke on the prospects of sustainable rural development through tourism in Bangladesh. At the end of the all sessions, Professor Selina Nargis, Treasurer and the Director of Admin IUBAT gave Vote of Thanks and acknowledged the contributions of all the participants and speakers from home and abroad. Mr. Yusuf Khan also said in the press note that such e-Symposium in tourism are very rare and in particular in Bangladesh where the top tourism scholars with approximately 200000 research citations shared the same platform. He believes this e-Symposium organized by The College of Tourism and Hospitality Management of IUBAT will contribute to the tourism academia to a greater extent.