Guidelines for Annual Conferences

Guidelines for the planning and organization of EATSA annual conferences

Conference Schedule

The Euro-Asia Tourism Studies Association (EATSA) hosts its annual conferences alternating between locations in Europe (in odd-numbered years) and in Asia (in even-numbered years). Proposals to host the conference should first be presented to the EATSA Committee meeting; upon agreement by the Committee, the proposal(s) are then presented during the EATSA General Assembly at the conference of the previous year. If there are several proposals endorsed by the Committee, the final location is decided by vote during the Assembly.

EATSA conferences are held in the summer, preferably in June or July. Conference organizers decide the specific dates of the conference after consultation with the EATSA Board.

Conference Format

EATSA conferences are usually held over a period of three days, ideally beginning on a Thursday and ending on a Saturday. Academic paper sessions constitute the main part of the conference. All presenters should be given sufficient time to present their work (15 minutes for presentation and 5 minutes for Q&A). When necessary, parallel sessions can be scheduled.

EATSA conferences should include:

• A welcome reception on the evening of the day before the conference
• One or two keynote speeches given by prominent scholars or business practitioners
• A conference dinner for all participants (pricing to be agreed upon)
• A Tourism Café Lab (or similar) that provides the opportunity for presenting research projects, calling to people with the same interest to attend and make progress in the configuration of joint projects
• Best Paper Awards
• The EATSA General Assembly of all members who are present that takes place on the final day of the conference
• A local visit, typically with a half day format (before, during or after the conference itself)

Conference Attendees

All tourism scholars or practitioners with an interest in European, Asian Tourism or Global Tourism may participate in EATSA conferences. For participants who are not yet members of EATSA, the annual membership fee will be added to the conference fee.

Conference Fees

Each year’s conference organizer sets the conference fee after consultation with the EATSA Board. The fee should be modest and should only be used to reimburse the organizer’s expenses (such as for receptions and meals, venues, conference support staff, production of conference proceedings, and the company visit) as far as they are not covered by other sources. The additional fee for non-members (see previous point) needs to be transferred to EATSA after the conference within two months after the conference. Fees for students should be half of those for other participants and may exclude extra conference events such the local tour and conference dinner. When the conference is held in an emerging or developing country, the organizer may set reduced fees for local participants in consultation with the EATSA Board.

Conference organizers are strongly encouraged to investigate alternative sources of finance, such as support from their home institutions or external sponsors.

Paper submission

Papers should generally follow the APA guidelines. The length of papers should not exceed 5000 words. This is also compatible with EATSJ publication guidelines.

Publications

All accepted papers will be included in full length in the EATSA conference proceedings (with ISBN), which are distributed to all conference participants. The author(s) may also indicate upon registration, if she/he/they wish to only have their abstracts published in the conference proceedings.

EATSA conference organizers are strongly encouraged to publish selected papers in the EATSJ. Conference organizers may also explore additional or alternative publication opportunities after consultation with the EATSA board.

 (1) The conference proposal should include the following:

1. Conference theme
2. Name of the conference organizer(s)
3. Name of the host institution
4. Approximate timing of the proposed conference.
5. Draft conference programme
6. Registration details including pricing options and additional events
7. Inclusion of an online session ranging from half-day to one-day to include participants who are unable to attend physically
8. Itinerary including conference location, setting, sites, attractions, heritage, visits etc
9. Links (or offers) to various DMOs, tour operators, hotels etc.
10. Accessibility
    1. Transportation and transfers: to conference location and related places
    2. Visas, documentation and restrictions

Proposals need to include a clear indication of the level of institutional support by representatives of the host institution and other sponsoring institutions and/or international collaborators such as other member affiliate universities of EATSA (not only). Collaboration with local institutions, industries and municipalities are also highly encouraged.

The host institution should have a part in hosting the conference proper, and not rely solely on a conference venue such as a conference room in a hotel. There could be a variation of locations, but a university setting should be included.

Conference proposals may be submitted at any time. However, to be considered for a particular year, they need to reach EATSA no later than one month before the conference of the previous year. Conference organizers are normally expected to attend the annual EATSA conference which immediately precedes the year of the proposed one, so that they can present the proposal directly to the EATSA Committee and during the general assembly. If there are several proposals, the Board will vote to decide the conference venue.

Should there be only 1 proposal, there needs to be a minimum vote from members of 50% plus 1 vote to secure the proposal. If this is not reached, there needs to be a second round of proposal submission.

(2)    Drafting and internally circulating the call for papers

Once a conference proposal has been accepted by EATSA, conference organizers need to implement a conference website in coordination with the EATSA board members. The logo for the conference will be the EATSA logo.

A Call for Papers is drafted and circulated amongst the EATSA Board members for feedback and potential suggestions for improvement. The Call for Papers must include a description of the conference theme and it should specify a number of topics or themes for which submissions are invited. It also needs to include a specific submission deadline for submission of abstracts and subsequently, instructions on how to format and submit papers. All these need to be reflected on the conference website.

EATSA strongly recommends setting a submission deadline (both abstracts and papers after approval of abstracts) which gives potential participants sufficient time to prepare and submit their work and also gives the local organizing committee the time needed to organize the review process for paper submissions.

Experience has shown that the paper submission deadline may be reasonably set to a date 3-4 months prior to the conference. EATSA also recommends not extending the submission deadline and mentioning this in the Call for Papers to signal to authors that the deadline needs to be kept to have their work considered for the conference.

Note that a short Call for Papers should be sent to the Board for review and consultation and a full CFP should be circulated by January. The paper submission deadline is suggested to be by the end of April at the latest. The review process should be organized during the month of May. Organizers are strongly encouraged to provide final acceptances for papers by 15th May at the latest, as many participants will require visas for travel or agreement from their institution for financial support to attend the conference in June.

The papers should demonstrate some effort to correspond to the conference thematic.

(3)    Creating an organizing committee for the conference

For each EATSA conference, an organizing committee needs to be created. It should include several members of the host institution who are willing and able to provide continuous support for the planning and organization of the conference and at least one member of the EATSA Board. Additionally, members of other academic institutions, research collaborators, local municipality or industry networks, may also be invited to join the organizing committee. The committee needs to be in place before the paper submission deadline.

(4) Reviewing conference submissions and announcing the results

All paper submissions that reach the conference organizers before the submission deadline need to be reviewed on an anonymous (double blind) basis. One to two reviews per paper are recommended.

EATSA Board members may be requested by the organizing committee to review conference submissions. Additionally, academic members of the host institution may also be recruited as reviewers. It is further recommended that a few backup reviewers are recruited who can replace those initial reviewers who are unable to submit their reviews on time. Reviewers need to be instructed about how and by when they should submit their reviews. Reviews are submitted online and consist of three parts: numerical scores regarding a given list of quality criteria, written comments to authors, and written comments to the organizing committee. Comments to authors should be written in a constructive tone to help them improving their work. Based on the reviews, the organizing committee will make decisions on the paper submissions.

After the decisions on paper submissions have been made, authors must be informed about the outcomes immediately. All notifications of acceptance or otherwise should be sent to the authors at least two months before the conference. Authors of accepted papers are invited to revise their work based on reviewer comments and re-submit their final paper versions that are being included in the conference proceedings. Revisions should be requested to be submitted no later than three weeks after acceptance notifications.

(5) Opening conference registration

Participants need to be asked to register and transfer the conference fee in advance of attending the conference. If this is not possible, payment could also be made directly at the conference venue. Conference payment may be supported by the payment function at the EATSA website in collaboration with the EATSA webmaster.

Conference registration needs to open when authors are notified about the acceptance of their papers, at the latest. Authors of accepted papers should be directed on how to register and be informed that the inclusion of their papers in the conference program is conditional on their registration and the transfer of the conference fee. A deadline for registration needs to be set accordingly and advertised on the conference/EATSA website. Information is made available on the EATSA website: the conference website should be linked to the EATSA website and vice versa.

(6) Composing and publishing the conference program

Once the authors of accepted papers have registered, the conference program can be devised. Conference sessions should be created and grouped around common themes.

Once the conference program has been finalised, it needs to be uploaded to the conference website. All conference participants should be notified of the availability of the program individually by email.

The conference program should be published no later than one month before the conference.

Conference organizers should inform session chairs of their role before the conference. Session chairs should be sent papers for their session and invited to read them before the conference.

(7) Editing conference proceedings

After the authors of accepted papers have sent in their final paper versions, the conference proceedings should be produced. A copy of the conference proceedings must be given to all participants together with all other materials in the conference bag (such as a hardcopy of the conference program, name tags, directions to the conference rooms, and writing materials) at the conference registration desk. The copies of the proceedings can be produced either in hardcopy or in electronic format.

(8) Providing information regarding travel and accommodation to participants

Conference participants should be provided with general travel information for the conference venue, including travel restrictions when applicable, preferably two months before the conference starts. Participants should also be provided with non-binding accommodation offers for hotels close to the conference site. These offers should include a choice of different hotels with varying price levels to provide all participants with reasonable choices according to their needs and personal conference budgets. Conference organizers are encouraged to negotiate special conference rates with these hotels beforehand.

Travel and accommodation information should be uploaded on the conference website. It should be made available as early as possible and at the latest at the same time as acceptance letters for conference submissions are sent out.

(9) Inviting selected participants to submit their work for follow-up publications

After the conference, selected participants should be invited by the conference organizers to revise their work based on comments received during the conference and submit it for a follow-up publication which can be either a special issue, a journal or an edited book or a paper on EATSJ (see also the point ‘publications’ above).

It is recommended that these invitations are sent to potential contributors as soon as possible, during or after the conference, as the authors of high-quality papers often commit themselves to other publication outlets otherwise.