Professor Billy Bai is Associate Dean (Academic Affairs) and Professor at the School of Hotel and Tourism Management, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University. He previously held several leadership positions at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, including Department Chair, Associate Dean, Senior Assistant Dean for Academic and Student Affairs, and Assistant Dean for Academic and Student Affairs at the UNLV Singapore campus.

Professor Bai holds a PhD and an MSc from Purdue University, an MPhil from The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and a BA from Nankai University. He is also a Certified Hospitality Educator (CHE). His research interests include consumer behaviour in hospitality and tourism, the impact of technology on decision-making, branding and loyalty, and destination marketing. He teaches hospitality and tourism marketing, service quality and management, and contemporary hospitality and tourism issues. His research has been published in leading hospitality and tourism journals, and he has received numerous research awards, including the John Wiley & Sons Lifetime Research Achievement Award from I-CHRIE. He also actively contributes to the profession through workshops, panel discussions, keynote speeches, and programme reviews.

Professor Jiyong Park is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Management Information Systems at the Terry College of Business, University of Georgia. He received his PhD in Information Systems from the Korea Advanced Institute of Science and Technology (KAIST) in 2019. He also holds two bachelor’s degrees from the Pohang University of Science and Technology (POSTECH), in Industrial and Management Engineering and Mathematics.

His research interests include digital sustainability, Green IS, the societal impacts of information technology, the economics of information systems, and causal inference. His research has been published in leading journals, including Management Science, MIS Quarterly, Information Systems Research, and the Journal of the Association for Information Systems. Professor Park currently serves as an Associate Editor for the Decision Sciences Journal, Decision Support Systems, and Information & Management.

Hak-chan Choi is Co-Chief Executive Officer of EZPMP, a leading MICE and tourism technology company in the Republic of Korea. With more than 20 years of experience in the MICE and events industry, he has been involved in major projects including the 2012 Yeosu Expo and the 2018 Inter-Korean Summit.

Under his leadership, EZPMP has expanded from event planning and operations into MICE technology and smart tourism. The company has developed digital solutions such as O2MEET and SMARTRIP, supporting the digital transformation of conferences, exhibitions, business events, and tourism destinations.

Mr Choi also led EZPMP’s participation in the development of Suwon Hwaseong Smart Tourism City. The company developed the Suwon Hwaseong GO! 365 application, offering integrated tourism information, digital travel services, and immersive experiences through virtual, augmented, and extended reality technologies. He advocates for the use of technology to connect people, destinations, and industries, and to create more seamless and innovative experiences across the global MICE and tourism sectors.