A year-three student in the BSc(Hons) in Hotel Management programme, Mr Wong Ka Yu, was named Most Valuable Player of Men's Handball by the University Sports Federation of Hong Kong, China on 21 March. Mr Wong's team also won the first prize in the competition.
Miss Qi Ling, Clean, a year-one student in the BSc(Hons) in Hotel Management programme, and her team received the Diamond Award of Innovation: GOOGLOR in the Global Student Challenge (GSC): PolyU Pre-Challenge 2009/10 at an award presentation ceremony held at the PolyU campus on 13 April 2010. The team will now represent Hong Kong at the GSC finals. The GSC is a global business plan competition hosted by PolyU for secondary and university students from around the world, with the aim of stimulating student innovation and providing a platform on which students can translate their creative ideas into sound business ventures. Miss Qi and her team designed an application for smart phones that informs users where they can take recyclable items for deposit.
As part of their Work-Integrated Education programme, four SHTM students, Miss Cheung Man Ching, Icy, Miss Kiang Ming Shan, Charmaine, Miss Phoebe Leung and Mr Li Chi Sing, Square, worked with the Southern District Council last summer to create a tourism website. The students were assigned tasks including fact finding, historical research, photo taking, site visits to tourist attractions, restaurant reviews and face-to-face interviews with tourists and industry professionals. This dedicated website now forms an essential part of the Council's strategy for promoting the first-ever Southern District Tourism and Culture Festival 2010-11. At the Ocean Park press conference announcing the initiative on 29 April, the Council launched the website, which can be found at www.travelsouth.hk.
SHTM faculty members and student were awarded two of the three Best Paper Awards at the Asia Tourism Forum - the 9th Biennial Conference on Tourism and Hospitality Industry in Asia held in Hualien, Taiwan, from 7 to 9 May 2010. Professor Haiyan Song and Dr Robert van der Veen received the Best Paper Award for their paper entitled "Celebrity Endorsement Effectiveness for Print Destination Advertising", whilst Dr Ada Lo and Ms Corrine Keying Wu received an award for their paper "Service Quality and Consumption Emotion in Resort and Hotel Spa Experience".
Professor Rob Law was elected to the International Federation for IT and Travel & Tourism (IFITT) board and will serve as Director of Research from April 2010 for three years. IFITT is the world's premier organisation focused on IT, travel and tourism, providing excellent opportunities for academic researchers, industry practitioners, government officials and others who have an interest in learning, sharing and debating the latest developments and knowledge creation in IT, travel and tourism. Professor Law was also elected Research Track Chair for ENTER 2011, which will be held in Innsbruck, Austria, in January 2011.
Professor Haiyan Song was nominated and elected a Director of International Institute of Forecasters. His directorship will last for four years commencing June 2010. The International Institute of Forecasters is the preeminent organisation for scholars and practitioners in the field of forecasting. It is dedicated to stimulating the generation, distribution and use of knowledge on forecasting in a wide range of fields.
