（Correspondents: Xue Tao, Du Yingying) ENTER2021 International Conference was officially held between January 19-22, 2021, which adopts the form of online meeting, focusing on the development of new technologies, emerging information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the tourism industry, and providing for experts and scholars in this field, enterprises, regulatory authorities and related organizations a high-quality international platform for exchange. The conference has received contributions from tourism scholars from all over the world. Among them, an array of papers and entries from Nankai University’s College of Tourism and Service Management were presented at the conference and won multiple international awards, which epitomized the rapid development of the College’s tourism management discipline and scientific research level, and enhanced the international influence of our College’s tourism management discipline.
The paper “Personalized travel recommendation for group of users: A hybrid method with sentiment analysis and group consensus” submitted by Chang Jiali, a PhD student enrolled at the college in 2019, won the first place in the PhD Proposal Award.
The paper “Reduce stress and contribute to the wellbeing: Measuring tourist’s emotional experiences toward virtual reality”submitted by the College’s doctoral student Du Yingying enrolled in 2020 earned the second prize in the PhD Proposal Award.
The conference in the meanwhile set up a data contest surrounding the topic of tourism data mining, which was organized by Expedia, the world's leading travel e-commerce companies, and IFTT. “Why accommodations cluster in definite there?”, completed by the team of Xue Tao and Lyu Yongqiang from our College (guided by Professor Qiu Hanqin) won the “Best Insights Award” in the data science contest.
“How to predict and rank top cities with the highest social impact of tourism activities”, an article completed by the team of Chang Jiali, He Lingyang and Zeng Min (guided by Professor Li Hui) obtained the “Best Visualization Award” in the data science contest.
In addition, Professor Qiu Hanqin, Dean, delivered a keynote speech on “How has technology supported learning and teaching in China during COVID-19” at the ENDER2021 Conference, introducing to the world the experience of Chinese universities in using high-tech means to ensure teachers’ online teaching and students’ receiving of online education during the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, and presenting to the universities from all over the world the success of Nankai University, thus making a meaningful attempt to share her educational thinking in telling the Chinese story and looking back at the Chinese experience.
At the end of the meeting, Dean Qiu Hanqin, President of the ENTER2022 International Conference, presented to the participants the charms of Tianjin, the century-long history of Nankai University, and extended an invitation to tourism students from universities around the world to meet face-to-face with them at Nankai University in Tianjin in 2022 to deliberate on the future of tourism development. It will be the first time that the conference is held in Asia.
