Jeroen Oskam's 8 highlights of the Hospitality Research Centre's 6th Yearly Overview

The Yearly Overview of the Hospitality Research Centre is made to inform the Hotelschool The Hague community - students, colleagues, alumni -, as well as our industry partners, about the progress of our work and new insights. The topics we have covered in 2023 range from robotics and automation to talent management, to sustainability, circularity and ESG (Environmental, Social and Governance).

For this blog article, we contacted Jeroen Oskam, Director of the Hospitality Research Centre at Hotelschool The Hague about his favourite research conducted in 2023.

8 highlights of Jeroen Oskam in random order:

• The Green Hotel Club, initiated by a group of leading hotels in Amsterdam, aims to ensure an inclusive and regenerative future for hospitality by adopting circular and sustainable practices. Hotelschool The Hague participates in this project by offering knowledge dissemination and placement opportunities for students and staff.

• The Psychology of Hospitality Operations: the dynamics and processes that underlie hospitality interactions, both between guests and hosts, and within the hospitality organisation. The project also examines the impact of robots and technological innovations on the hospitality environment and the human factor.
  

• The IN2FOOD Student Competition, organised in partnership with the Erasmus + IN2FOOD consortium and Marriott Indonesia, challenged students from different universities and disciplines to come up with creative and sustainable solutions for reducing food waste in the hospitality sector.
  

• Robotics research, such as the Self-Cleaning Bed project, developed by a group of TU Delft students in collaboration with Hotelschool The Hague, aims to automate one of the most physically demanding tasks in the hospitality industry: housekeeping. The project involves designing and building a prototype of a bed that cleans its own mattress using steam, which will be presented at Robohouse, on the TU Delft campus, in January 2024.
  

• The THETA project, short for “Transformative Hospitality Education through Tech Abilities,” is a cooperation between TU Dublin, Haaga Helia University of Applied Sciences, Universitat de les Illes Balears and Hotelschool The Hague, co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union. The project aims to explore the accessible use of eXtended Reality (Augmented and Virtual Reality) in higher education, and its implications for the hospitality and tourism industry.
  

• City Hospitality, funded by a SIA grant, aims to connect and collaborate with like-minded European cities to find solutions for urban tourism issues, using the City Hospitality Maturity Model as a framework.
  

• Resident Empowerment explores the dynamics of resident involvement in tourism decision-making across three European cities: San Sebastian, Ioannina, and The Hague, and identifies the barriers and opportunities for effective collaboration between residents and stakeholders.
  

• Community Engagement: in partnership with The Social Hub, Hotelschool The Hague investigates how hotels can contribute to the local community, foster social cohesion, and enhance quality of life, by engaging with residents and other stakeholders. The project also explores how tourism can be a positive contributor to the local community and create sustainable value for and with locals.

In addition to the above highlights, the Yearly Overview showcases a wide range of publications related to the hospitality and business sector. Furthermore, the report also provides an update on the academic conferences and meetings held and organised in 2023.

The growing importance of research in hospitality and at Hotelschool The Hague is also visible in the expansion of the Research Centre, which currently has 17 members. Among them, we are delighted to welcome two new faculty members who joined in 2023: Melinda Ratkai and Daphne Dekker.

Dr Melinda Ratkai is a Hungarian researcher, newly based in The Netherlands, with studies in Economics, International Relations, Cognitive Sciences, and Tourism. She is a passionate educator, researcher, manager, and thinker in the fields of business and social sciences. She has a strong connection with hospitality, having worked in the tourism industry since she was 14, and having taught at Les Roches in Marbella, Spain. At Hotelschool The Hague, she wants to contribute to the education of future hospitality leaders, and join the course creation process, tackle industry questions, and come up with solutions.

Dr Daphne Dekker, with interests in Hospitality, Tourism, Guest Experience, Education, and Curriculum Development, returned to the Hotelschool after five years abroad. She has also worked at Radboud and VU, where she supervised theses of Master students. Another great example of growth within the Hospitality Research and Hospitality Education in general is the brand new pilot for the Professional Doctorate for Leisure Tourism and Hospitality where seven Universities of Applied Sciences in this domain collaborate.

To read more about our Research Centre, download the full yearly overview here.