March 2026

Volume 27, Issue 1

Newsletter of School of Hotel & Tourism Management
The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

ACHIEVEMENTS AND RECOGNITION

On 19 March 2026, Vatey Mean, a final-year student in the BSc in Hotel & Tourism Management (Event & Experience Management) programme, received the Outstanding Student Award, School of Hotel and Tourism Management 2025/2026 at the Presentation Ceremony for the Outstanding Student Award and Presidential Student Leadership Award 2025/2026. Outstanding Student Awards are granted annually to full-time final-year students who excel in both academic and non-academic pursuits during their studies.

At the same ceremony, Nigel Lee, a final-year student in the BSc in Hotel & Tourism Management (Hotel Management) programme, received the Presidential Student Leadership Award, School of Hotel and Tourism Management 2025/2026. Presidential Student Leadership Awards are given to affirm students' excellent leadership performance and relentless passion for serving the community.

Hotel ICON, the SHTM's fully integrated teaching and research hotel, was named as Forbes Travel Guide Recommended Hotel. Forbes Travel Guide is the only global authority on luxury travel hospitality.

Developed in partnership with PATA, the SHTM's PATA Visitor Forecast Project won First Place at the IIF Forecasting Practice Competition during the Foresight Practitioner Conference 2026 in Bruges, Belgium on 2–3 March.

PolyU honoured 15 SHTM faculty and staff members, namely Prof. Kaye Chon, Prof. Crystal Shi, Prof. Henry Tsai, Prof. Nelson Tsang, Dr Eric Chan, Prof. Janelle Chan, Prof. Faye Hao, Dr Hanyuan Zhang, Dr Chris Chan, Ms Julianna Ching, Ms Candy Lo, Ms Brigid Yau, Ms Carol Chan, Ms Winnie Wong, and Ms Yuki Lui, with Long Service Awards in recognition of their many years of loyal and dedicated service to the institution.

Dr Elton Sun, Vice President of Hyatt China and CEO of UrCove Hotels and a 2023 graduate of the Doctor of Hotel and Tourism Management programme and 2004 graduate of the Master of Science in Hotel and Tourism Management programme, received the Outstanding PolyU Alumni Award (Professional Achievement) 2025 at the award presentation ceremony on 13 January 2026.

Five MSc students in the International Wine Management programme, including Angel Huang, Diana Zeng, Jennifer Gao, Win Yang and Nia Xu, received the Grand Prize Winner of the Byron Marlow Award, which is the highest honour at the 2025 Intercollegiate Wine Business Invitational (IWBI) wine business plan development competition, hosted by Wine Business Education in the United States. This marks the third consecutive year that our SHTM students have received this prestigious Grand Prize.