Geography and Environmental Management MES student Sarah Tam was recently selected as a top 3 Young Talent winner (out of 70 international applicants) to attend and present her work at the World Tourism Forum.
500 leaders, senior executives and experts from the global travel and tourism industry attended the 5th World Tourism Forum Lucerne 2017. They were joined by tourism ministers, ambassadors, university professors, Next Generation representatives and Young Talents from the World Tourism Forum Lucerne's university network from around the world. With delegates from 75 countries, inspired by the extremely high level of debate and presentation at the Forum, they formed a dynamic network prepared to engage openly and dynamically. Guided by the theme, ‘staying relevant in uncertain times’, the forum tackled pressing challenges facing the industry including fast-changing digitalization, attracting and retaining talent, the challenge of sustainability, and safety and security. This year, there was a strong focus on encouraging the next generation of tourism industry leaders. The highly competitive Young Talent Programme seeks out the best students from the Forum’s partner universities to network with internationally renowned CEOS and leaders in the travel, tourism and hospitality industry. As a Master’s student at the University of Waterloo, Sarah was selected for a full travel and conference award to attend the World Tourism Forum hosted in Lucerne, Switzerland. She presented her research on climate change vulnerability in the tourism sector, supervised by Dr. Daniel Scott, and was also selected as a top 3 Young Talent winner out of the 9 students who were invited to attend (and out of 70 international applicants).
For more information: http://wtfl2017.wtflucerne.org/highlights
Sarah Tam receives Tourism Care's ASTA Holland America Line Graduate Research Scholarship
Sarah is also the 2017 Tourism Care’s ASTA Holland America Line Graduate Research Scholarship recipient. She was selected from a highly competitive pool of applicants as an exemplary representative of the future of the travel, tourism and hospitality industries. As a BES graduate from the International Development program at UW, and a current MA candidate under the supervision of Dr. Daniel Scott, her masters research explores the impact pathways of climate change in growing tourism destinations such as Sri Lanka. Sarah has previously worked in Colombo, Sri Lanka as a Research and Program Support Officer at World University Services of Canada (WUSC) to improve the improve market access for women and youth in the tourism and garment industries. In June 2017 she will be returning to Sri Lanka to conduct field research with local and national tourism stakeholders for her Masters thesis in order understand the social, economic and ecological implications of a changing climate in Sri Lanka. Sarah’s goal is to gather the necessary skills to work in the area of sustainable development, capacity building, and corporate social responsibility after her graduate studies. Channeling the innovative culture of the University of Waterloo, Sarah hopes to bring innovative ways for tourism research to meet the needs of the industry and to develop effective means of stakeholder collaboration to deliver appropriate results.
For more information: Tourism Cares http://www.tourismcares.org/ and WUSC-SL http://wusc.ca/en/region/sri-lanka
