Council for Hospitality Management Education Conference (CHME) 2025

We are delighted to announce that the 33rd  CHME conference will be hosted by University of Essex, UK, from 20th  to 23rd May 2025.

The hospitality and tourism sector has rebounded since 2020, with many organisations and destinations experiencing pre-pandemic demand. But the disruptive impact of the global pandemic has led to structural changes, including changes to customer and employee behaviour.

While some destinations thrive, others, are struggling with overtourism, straining local resources and risking environmental harm. Customers’ adoption of technology has accelerated, due to the curbing of physical interactions. Meanwhile, customer service interactions have become more challenging due to increased incivility and staff shortages, compounded by the pandemic-driven exodus of workers to other industries. Despite these difficulties, the hospitality and tourism sector has an opportunity to embrace transformative change by leveraging disruptive innovation to meet evolving customer needs.

The 33rd CHME aims to offer a distinctive forum where participants from academia, industry, government, and other sectors can actively exchange, share, and challenge ideas through cutting-edge research on hospitality industry. The conference theme, ‘Transforming the hospitality sector through innovation’, is of great relevance for everyone in hospitality and tourism education.

At the heart of our conference lies the ambition to delve deeply into the modern challenges faced by the hospitality industry. We aim to encourage meaningful discussions and nurture fresh viewpoints in a field that is continuously adapting on a global scale. We're keen to receive a diverse range of submissions, from theoretical and empirical research papers to methodological studies and in-depth case studies that focus on particular nations.

Our expectation is that these contributions will touch upon and explore the theoretical underpinnings, practical considerations, and advanced methodologies inherent to the realms of hospitality management.

Our five themes and tracks are listed below.  Within each track, we have suggested some topic ideas but welcome any related topics.

Tracks and Track-Chairs

Hospitality management

Alisha Ali - Sheffield Hallam University

Contact: alisha.ali@shu.ac.uk

• Innovation in hospitality management
• Building competitiveness in hospitality
• Managing destinations for the long term

Critical and cultural studies of hospitality

Peter Lugosi - Oxford Brookes University

Contact: plugosi@brookes.ac.uk

• Sustainability and responsible practices in hospitality and tourism
• Crisis management in hospitality and tourism
• Society and hospitality

Learning, teaching and assessment in hospitality management education

Lisa Wyld - Buckinghamshire New University

Contact: lisa.wyld@bnu.ac.uk

• Innovations in hospitality education

Innovation in customer experiences

Jennifer Chang - University of Essex

Contact: y.chang@essex.ac.uk

• Delivering meaningful customer experiences
• Addressing customer incivility
• Customer-technology interaction (e.g., artificial intelligence, virtual reality, metaverse, service robots, etc.)

Innovation in employee recruitment and retention

Marina Laškarin Ažić - University of Rijeka

Contact: marinal@fthm.hr

Kristina Crnjar - University of Rijeka

Contact: kcrnjar@fthm.hr

• Delivering value to employees
• Employee well being

Submission Guidelines:

All submissions must be original and not simultaneously submitted to another journal or conference. All abstracts, posters and full papers must be submitted via the EasyChair conference management system.

1. Full papers should be 1500 words long (excluding notes, references, author details, keywords and abstract). Article title, an abstract of 120 words, 6-8 keywords should be included in the main manuscript. Author details such as name(s), poster and email address should be supplied separately via the Easychair system. Revised full papers should not exceed 2500 words.
2. Posters should be in A1-size with a 500-word summary. Name, title, introduction, contribution to theory/practice, methodology/methods, results (if applicable) and conclusion (if applicable) should be included in the poster.

Important Dates and Deadlines

• Deadline for paper or poster submissions by: 13 January 2025.
• Feedback on submissions (before/by): 3 February 2025.
• Deadline for the final paper submission: 10 March 2025.

Note: Authors should amend the work in light of the reviewers' comments and then submit the final version to the system.

For enquiries about submissions, please email Dr Jennifer Chang (y.chang@essex.ac.uk).

For general questions, please direct them to the CHME2025 Conference Chair, Dr Linda Lee (linda.lee@essex.ac.uk).

We eagerly await the opportunity to welcome you to the University of Essex for a conference that promises to be both memorable and impactful.

CHME Ticket Prices

Early-bird member: £349

Regular member: £409

Early-bird non-member: £509

Early-bird student: £249

Regular student: £299

Single-day: £219