CityU hosts Tourism and Hospitality Leadership Summit, discussing industrial transformation and talent innovation in the digital intelligence era
On the occasion of its 15th anniversary, the Faculty of International Tourism and Management (FITM) at City University of Macau (CityU) recently hosted the “2026 Tourism and Hospitality Leadership Summit”. Under the theme “Tourism and Hospitality Development in the Digital Intelligence Era: Industry Transformation and Talent Innovation”, the summit focused on the key points of industry transformation in the wave of digital intelligence and the cultivation of high-level talent. It was dedicated to building a high-level industry-academia exchange platform that facilitates deep integration between academic and industry circles both at home and abroad. It aimed to build a consensus on tourism education reform, industrial upgrade, and collaborative talent development. The activity brought together leaders, renowned experts and scholars from universities and research institutions across mainland China and Macao, as well as senior representatives from the cultural tourism and hospitality industries, demonstrating the summit’s strong appeal and influence in the field of tourism education and management, and promoting high-quality cultural tourism industry development in Macao and the Guangdong-Hong Kong-Macao Greater Bay Area.
At the opening ceremony, CityU Pro‑Rector Chan Chon Pat stated that the acceleration of technological innovation is driving a comprehensive digital transformation in the business models, service formats, and talent quality standards of the tourism and hospitality industry. In this context, Pro‑Rector Chan emphasized the need for higher standards in cultivating interdisciplinary and internationally oriented industry leaders. He called for closer collaboration between universities and the industry to develop talent with systematic thinking, interdisciplinary integration capabilities, and a global perspective, enabling them to meet the new opportunities and challenges facing the sector.
The attending guests witnessed the graduation of the first batch of 34 students from the “Accor Program”. This specialized program was jointly established by FITM and Accor, a world-leading hospitality group, in 2024. It is designed to provide students with international professional training and practical platforms through a university-industry collaborative and integrated education model, cultivating hospitality elites with a global version and hands-on capabilities. The successful completion of the students marks a significant milestone in CityU’s efforts to deepen industry-academia collaboration and align talent cultivation with industry needs. It also stood out as a highlight of the 15th anniversary academic activities, showcasing the shared commitment to collaborative education between the university and the industry.
The summit featured a diverse and focused agenda, comprising keynote speeches, roundtable discussion, and expert dialogue salons, forming a multilevel, and multidimensional discussion framework. In the keynote speech session, several leading scholars and industry figures were invited to speak, including Ma Yong, director of the National Virtual Teaching and Research Center for Tourism Management of the Ministry of Education; Zhang Hongmei, vice dean of the College of Tourism at Shanghai Normal University; and Wang Yiwen, talent and culture director for greater China at Accor. They studied and judged industry trends from the perspectives of digital intelligence transformation, organizational management innovation, and the construction of talent cultivation systems for the new era, offering professional insights and practical references for the reform of talent development in universities.
At the industry-academia alignment level, the summit featured a roundtable dialogue session, inviting senior executives from hotel groups and cultural tourism technology enterprises to exchange cutting‑edge practical experiences on core issues such as organizational capability restructuring under digital intelligence transformation, talent structure optimization, and the development of university-industry collaborative education mechanisms. The discussions aimed to promote effective alignment between industry talent demands, capability standards, and university curricula, thereby advancing the deep and substantive integration of industry and education.
Two expert dialogue salons were also held, focusing on “Internationalization of Tourism Talent Cultivation” and “Digitalizing Tourism Programs”. The salon on “Internationalization of Tourism Talent Cultivation” featured in-depth discussions on topics such as shaping global employment competitiveness, integrating international perspectives with local characteristics, and constructing cross-cultural education systems. The session on “Digitalizing Tourism Programs” focused on the digital intelligence reform of specialized curricula, the integrated cultivation of technical and humanistic quality, and the new demands placed on education by ethical and social issues arising from digital intelligence development, including data privacy, algorithmic bias, and the digital divide, building a consensus on the innovative development of tourism higher education.
The 2026 Tourism and Hospitality Leadership Summit served as an efficient bridge for exchanges and cooperation between academia and industry. Looking ahead, CityU will take this summit as a key opportunity to continue to building high-level, regular academic exchange platforms, deepen industry‑academia collaboration with key universities and leading cultural tourism enterprises in the Greater Bay Area and the mainland China, and focus on the reform and innovation of talent cultivation in tourism and hospitality management in the digital intelligence era, so as to remains committed to injecting sustained momentum into the high-quality regional cultural tourism industry development and the building high-level talent pipeline.
Source: Faculty of International Tourism and Management
