The 8th scientific international conference on sustainable tourism with the participation of many professors in the world wrapped up its three days of working on April 14.

The event was organized in corporation with University Paris 13 – Nord, Sorbonne Paris Cite, Association International de Management du Tourist Durable, according to Dr. Ha Thi Thuy Duong, dean of tourism management, Faculty of Business Administration at the Ho Chi Minh City Open University.

Under the theme “Marketing of Tourism Products, Businesses and Protection of Ecosystems: Issues and Challenges?” attending professors have contributed creative ideas to tourism management and Asia – Pacific development strategy preservation.

A number of professors from universities in the U.S., Australia, France, Thailand, Vietnam and leaders of tourism enterprises have provided a great variety of information about such current issues as ecological system, cultural heritage, tourism development, human resources and service quality, and management policies.

According to Dr Frederic William William Swierczek, Director of Thailand’s Asian Institute of Technology Center in Vietnam, the issues regarding the tourism impact on the ecological system and the preservation solutions are problems the world needs to pay attention to.

“It is always essential to learn experiences from preserving ecological system and balancing between tourism development and resource efficiency protection,” Dr. Frederic emphasized.

After making suggestions on several important issues of the Open University such as supplying high quality human resources – one of the urgent demands in the recent years, Professor Robyn Bushel, from the Western Sydney University, Australia, said it is also essential to boost foreign language capability and implement practice programs to improve the skills and attitude to response to demand from the labor market for the local and Asia-Pacific tourism industry.

Moreover, the Open University should also have regular students and lecturers exchange programs with such countries as France, Sweden, the U.S. and Australia to update and exchange professional knowledge and skills. This will provide grounds for the Open University to boost the local tourism promotion and meet the demand of sustainable tourism development in the future.