A significant gap exists between the tourism sector and academia. While industry professionals navigate rapidly changing markets, innovations, and evolving consumer expectations, scholars produce valuable research that too often remains confined to academic circles. The dialogue between these two worlds is still limited, leaving vast opportunities for collaboration, learning, and transformation unrealized.

But this divide cannot continue. The tourism world needs a shared space — a living bridge — where researchers and practitioners meet, exchange perspectives, and co-create new knowledge to guide the future of the industry.

In response, visionary academic institutions and forward-looking tourism organizations from around the world come together around a common purpose: to connect research and practice, foster collaboration across boundaries, and spark meaningful transformation in how tourism evolves and contributes to society.