The AIHR 2019 annual conference took place 26/27 March 2019 in the conference rooms of the Stenden Hotel. With the topical theme of ‘local food’ it drew a wide range of academics from The Netherlands, Europe and the UK (!). Chaired by Professor Dr Elena Cavagnaro, the conference was opened by SHMS Academy Director Marco ten Hoor and attracted over 70 delegates to listen to 20 presentations and 4 Keynotes, as well as a wine workshop by Davide Girardi of Winespleasure. Keynotes were delivered by Professor Dr Sally Everett of King’s College London, Dr Gabriel Laeis of IUBH Internationale Hochschule Bonn, Dr Francesca Zampollo of the Online School of Food Design and Dr Matt Coler of Campus Fryslân, University of Groningen, covering topics from tourism tastescapes, local food, food design thinking and the culture of eating. NHL Stenden presenters included Dr Radu Mihailescu, Hans Revier, Sarah Seidel, Dr Erwin Losekoot, John Hornby, Marloes Otten, Dr Elena Cavagnaro, Berend Lunenborg, Dr Matthias Olthaar and Marcelo de Mansoldo. The conference dinner was held in Restaurant Wannee.

AIHR was particularly pleased to welcome back Professor Conrad Lashley and Visiting Professor Dr Paul Lynch who reviewed the abstracts and awarded the Best Paper to Perrine Leroy and Peter Varga of Ecole Hoteliere Lausanne. Prof. Azzurra Rinaldi of Unitelma Sapienza University, Rome also took the opportunity to present a guest lecture on digital universities for NHL Stenden staff before the conference.

A special issue of the journal Research in Hospitality Management will be published shortly containing invited papers from the conference.

Our thanks to Masters Office administrators Regina van der Meer and Gineke Onclin, MeetingU and Stenden Hotel staff for making the conference run so smoothly.

Next year will see AIHR/SHMS and NHL Stenden host the conference THE INC 2020 in collaboration with the University of Derby and the University of Sunderland (9-11 June 2020) with the theme “Revisiting value co-creation and co-destruction in tourism, hospitality & events”. For more information please visit: https://theinc2020.wordpress.com/themes/

Erwin Losekoot, Ph.D, FIH, FRGS, FHEA
Professor of Hospitality Studies
Academy of International Hospitality Research
erwin.losekoot@stenden.com