Against the backdrop of globalization and cultural-tourism integration, three BNBU Tourism，Hospitality and Event Management programme students - Zihang Qiu, Ziyou Long and Yincheng Lin - demonstrated outstanding academic excellence and innovative thinking at two recent academic conferences.

Zihang Qiu - Narrative and Emotional Recovery in Tourism Service Failures

The 2nd International for Early-Career Researcher Conference in Hospitality and Tourism (IECR 2025) was successfully held at Macau University of Science and Technology from May 9 to 11, 2025. Qiu Zihang, a student from the THEM programme of the School of Culture and Creativity, had her research paper accepted after peer review and was invited to deliver an academic presentation, engaging with international scholars in discussions on tourism service innovation and sustainable development issues.

Zihang Qiu's paper “Emotional Recovery after Tourism Service Failures: The Impact of Narrative Restructuring and the Role of Recovery Experience” investigates effective emotional rehabilitation for tourists experiencing service failures. The study demonstrates how various narrative strategies facilitate recovery, while identifying 'recovery experience' as the critical mediator between behavioral intentions and emotional responses. This research provides tourism enterprises with tiered response strategies tailored to different service failure scenarios. Recognized by conference experts for its innovativeness, the study showcases BNBU students' strong academic research capabilities and global perspective.

Long Ziyou & Lin Yincheng: Contextual Effects of Social Media Emojis on Tourist Decision-Making

Meanwhile, at the recently held Greater Bay Area Tourism Graduate Academic Conference, THEM students Long Ziyou and Lin Yincheng won third prize for their research titled "A Double-Edged Sword? Examining the Context-Dependent Positive and Negative Effects of Emojis in Travel Posts on Visit Intention," which stood out among numerous competing papers.

The eye-tracking and survey study revealed: While body-text emojis in travel posts enhance credibility but reduce visit intention, title emojis require careful balance between appeal and trustworthiness. Different emoji types (emotional/semantic/irrelevant) distinctly affect user engagement, with content credibility (body text) and cognitive avoidance (title) emerging as key decision-making mechanisms. Long and Lin's findings not only demonstrate emojis' "double-edged sword" effect in tourism marketing, but also provide empirical evidence and practical guidelines for optimizing social media content design.

From left (back row): THEM Students Long Ziyou and Lin Yincheng

The outstanding performance of BNBU students at international conferences demonstrates the success of our Liberal Arts Education model. Moving forward, the programme will continue supporting innovative student research to contribute youth expertise to the cultural tourism industry's development.

Text: Weilu WANG

Photos: Zihang Qiu, Ziyou Long and Yincheng Lin