Welcomgroup Graduate School of Hotel Administration (WGSHA), Manipal Academy of Higher Education (MAHE), Manipal organized a two day national level online Faculty Development Program (FDP) on  ‘Rethinking Hospitality Education: Industry-Academia Interface’ on 4^th & 5^th June, 2020 through Microsoft Teams with a series of webinars on eight contemporary sessions by senior professionals & experts. There were more than 100 faculty members of hospitality & tourism fraternity from across India to partake in this event, which was organized to equip hospitality educators on contemporary teaching & research proficiency that facilitates to bridge the gap between academia and industry.

Chef Thiru (Principal, WGSHA) gave the overview & purpose of the FDP and focalized that a new white paper on the future of higher education predicts artificial intelligence, analytics, virtual reality, and robotic telepresence as the driving forces in shaping the hospitality industry over the next 20 years. He stressed that long-standing models of higher education that prefer tradition & stability will be supplemented, if not displaced, by new models that embrace organizational innovation, responsivity, and adaptation.

Dr. H S Ballal (Pro Chancellor, MAHE, Manipal) inaugurated the event as chief guest and highlighted the concept of lifelong learning and suggested that teachers should practice what they preach; and advised all the hospitality educators to have excellent subject knowledge & communication skills to gain better respect, engagement and interest of the learners. He also cited the notable contributions of Dr. Sarvepalli Radhakrishnan and Pandit Madan Mohan Malviya in the entire teaching-learning process of the country.

Dr. Narayan Sabhahit (Registrar, MAHE, Manipal), as the chief guest for the valedictory function appreciated the entire team of WGSHA & in specific the Principal for organizing such a wonderful FDP and also expressed his gratitude to all the faculty participants from across India for partaking in this event.

Mr. Anand Sudarshan (Founder & Director, Sylvant Advisors Private Limited, Bengaluru) was the keynote speaker of the event and deliberated the futuristic approach of learning-teaching construct in higher education with the use of flipped classroom with engaging contents. He highlighted that technology will be the great enabler with the presence of artificial intelligence & simulations, which necessitates advance assessment modalities for which curriculum and pedagogies needs to be transformed. He even predicted the presence of Cyber/Cloud/Virtual Universities in the impending times to come.

Mr. Akshay Kulkarni (Hospitality & Education Professional, Mumbai) focussed that Educators should be the enablers of learning rather than just pushing the knowledge and the content needs to be completely engaging & interesting. He remarked that teachers should be called as “resource”, as good teacher is a lifelong learner.

Mr. Vivek Sharma (General Manager, Renaissance - Marriott Hotels, Ahmedabad) discussed as how to embrace the change in rebooting the hotels. He accentuated on all the revised standard operating procedures including hygiene & safety norms (both for guests & employees), which needs to be implemented for operational areas of hotels. He even discussed on the excerpts from Times of India, Deloitte, Les Roches - Marbella, Spain; which foregrounds that hospitality business would certainly bounce back very soon inspite of this pandemic.

Ms. Roopashree Mallya (Faculty, Department of Physiology, Kasturba Medical College, Mangalore) deliberated on various contemporary processes of research projects and fortified hospitality educators in transforming themselves to become educational researchers, and also focalized on the techniques of assessment. She accentuated that a good research question should be FINER – Feasible, Interesting, Novel, Ethical and Relevant.

Dr. John Ap (Visiting Professor & Director, Global Centre for Tourism Education & Training, Macao, China) discussed on the various challenges & realities of getting started in research. He emphasized on different steps of research and provided general useful tips to conduct research in a very facilitating manner.

Dr. Rajan Saxena (Former Vice-Chancellor, SVKM's Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Deemed University, Mumbai highlighted on new paradigms in learning in post COVID Era and stressed that today’s teachers are technology immigrants who are dealing with technology natives. He spoke about various disruptive in contemporary higher education and expressed that learning goals, strategies & faculty competencies needs to be aligned with customised & modular curriculum, which are much required in today’s digital education by giving due credit to cognitive & emotional intelligence of learners and thereby making the sessions more effective.

Mr. Shyam Viswanathan (Educational Consultant, Coimbatore) deliberated on design and development of learning resources and stressed on design thinking as the need of the hour. He also focussed on different levels blooms taxonomy with prevailing pedagogical examples focalizing on terminal objectives, enabling objectives & design element as the integral part of the contemporary curriculum.

Mr. Sanjay Jayanth (Director Asia-Pacific Routes, ASM Aviation Week Network) foregrounded on the significance of route development on travel & tourism, depicting the present impact on aviation industry, and various futuristic norms & forecasts to regain customers’ confidence on air travel and its recovery, which necessitates involvement of all the associated stakeholders in the process.