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The 69th AIEST conference 25-29 August 2019, Varna, Bulgaria

The 69th AIEST Conference took place in Varna, Bulgaria between 25th and 29th August 2019, hosted by Prof. Stanislav Ivanov from Varna University of Management, Bulgaria. For a second time after 1979 Varna welcomed the annual AIEST conference. The event began on 25th August with an Early Career Researchers Seminar. Sara Dolnicar (Coeditor-in-chief of Annals of Tourism Research) and Egon Smeral shared useful tips for young researchers to get published in top academic journals. Several Ph.D. students presented their research and received valuable feedback. The conference was open on 26th August by a welcome address by Harald Pechlaner, president of AIEST (Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt, Germany), and the local host (Stanislav Ivanov), followed by an Industrial Panel of tourism and hospitality professionals from Varna region. Representatives from Varna municipality, hotel managers and tour operators discussed the current situation of Varna as a tourist destination and pointed out the challenges in its future development. Conference delegates provided numerous constructive suggestions about how to overcome the challenges the destination faces. The industrial panel was an effective platform for connecting academia and the hospitality business. The keynote address by Iis P. Tussyadiah (University of Surrey, UK) focused on automation and artificial intelligence in hospitality and tourism, and the major issues companies, policymakers and researchers need to consider regarding these new technological realities. A total of 40 delegates from 16 countries participated in the conference. During the three working days, they presented their highquality research in several thematic sessions – “Sustainability”, “Destination governance and management”, “Consumer behaviour”, “Economics and policy”, “Business models and management”. During the “Sustainability” session the delegates presented cases from the F&B industry regarding food waste, winery business models and determinants of sustainable food travel product choices. In the next session “Destination governance and management” the participants discussed stakeholder engagement for sustainable planning and rural tourism development and presented different cases from Slovakia, Switzerland, Japan and other examples from southeastern Europe. Gamification, disaster tourism, over-tourism, and feminist view were in focus of the “Consumer behaviour” session. They provoked intense discussions and comments. The presentations in the “Economics and policy” session focused on the macro perspective. Papers explored social and political factors, econometric tourism demand studies and an intriguing case study about seasonality on Lake Balaton, Hungary. Finally, on the last day, delegates saw several presentations in the “Business models and management” session, in which robotics took a major place. Other researched topics included aboriginal culinary experiences, migrant ski retention, tourismoriented diversification of farms, as well as few case studies demonstrating the effect of sustainable consumption and production. After each session, there were numerous questions and constructive comments.