Dr. Meng Qu, Associate Professor at the Center for Advanced Tourism Studies (CATS), Hokkaido University, was invited to deliver a keynote speech during Session 4 of the 19th UN Tourism Asia-Pacific Executive Training Programme on Tourism Policy and Strategy. The event took place from May 19th to 22nd, 2025, at the Novotel Ulaanbaatar Hotel in Ulaanbaatar, Mongolia.
Themed “Tourism and Culture: Optimizing Beneficial Impacts and Building Resilience”, the programme gathered high-level tourism policymakers from 22 countries in the Asia-Pacific region. In his keynote titled “Future Frontiers for Culture-driven Tourism Development”, Dr. Qu shared insights on sustainable tourism development driven by cultural resources and innovation.
The programme was initiated under a Memorandum of Understanding signed in 2006 between the UN Tourism and the Ministry of Culture, Sports and Tourism (MCST) of the Republic of Korea. Since then, it has become a vital platform for over 400 tourism policymakers to enhance tourism-related strategies and to exchange best practices within the region.
Through this opportunity, CATS aims to foster long-term academic and industry collaborations with tourism policymakers across the Asia-Pacific region.
北海道大学観光学高等研究センター(CATS)の渠蒙准教授・副センター長は、2025年5月19日から22日にモンゴル・ウランバートルで開催された「第19回UN TOURISMアジア太平洋地域観光政策戦略エグゼクティブ・トレーニング・プログラム(THE 19TH UN TOURISM ASIA-PACIFIC EXECUTIVE TRAINING PROGRAMME ON TOURISM POLICY AND STRATEGY)」に招待され、Session 4にて基調講演を行いました。
今回のプログラムのテーマは「Tourism and Culture: Optimizing Beneficial Impacts and Building Resilience」で、渠准教授は「Future Frontiers for Culture-driven Tourism Development」と題し、アジア太平洋22か国の観光政策決定者に向けて、文化を基盤とした持続可能な観光開発の最前線とその可能性について発表しました。
1月18日(木)、福山博士研究員が新渡戸カレッジの基礎科目IIの授業の中でゲスト講師として登壇し、「Transforming “Negative Natural Phenomenon” into “Positive Tourism Resources” : The Case of Snow & Ice Tourism Creation」というテーマで講義を行いました。
新渡戸カレッジでの授業の様子
下記の主な学生の声に見るように、講義はたいへん好評なものとなりました。
The guest lectures were insightful and gave me multiple suggestions for our project. Personally, it was a motivational moment when Fukuyama san introduced Sapporo Taruhi Matsuri, for which I was involved as a staffer in 2019. I also realized that there can be a truly inexhaustible possibility in giving solutions for Sapporo’s winter problems, given that now I’m working on a very different project from Taruhi Matsuri with my new teammates.
Thank you very much for the class, this class is one of my favorites because we soul have two experts who helped us to improve our projects. I think that this time I contributed more to the team compared to the class before. I enjoyed it very much Takafumi Fukuyama’s presentation. I think it was really fun and interesting. I also enjoyed the way he explained the topic.
Presentations by two lecturers were very intriguing and I learned how the winter/snow phenomenon could be turned into precious tourism experiences (with some challenges). I looked up the price for the Jifubuki tour in Aomori and it was 3,000 yen for an adult! To me it was a bit expensive but it also means that such experience is very valuable for those who do not live with snow.