Professor Tom Baum was the keynote speaker at the 50th EUHOFA Congress, held in Tallinn and Pärnu, Estonia recently.
EUHOFA is an umbrella organisation for European hotel and tourism schools – Strathclyde hosted the 1992 Congress. Professor Baum's theme was an assessment of the extent to which university programmes (content and pedagogy) in the field are in tune with the needs and expectations of the Facebook generation.
Estonia is a country where medical and leisure spas are an important part of both the tourism industry and everyday life. The Congress included what was probably the first academic session in a spa environment, with participants lounging in hot tubs or dangling their feet in the water while engaging with the paper presentations.