Panel Sessions
01
Tourism
Frontières Sans Friction : Biométrie, Systèmes de e-Visa et la Fin des Files d’Attente ?
La biométrie, les portiques automatisés et les systèmes de e-Visa redéfinissent profondément les modalités de franchissement des frontières. Ces technologies visent à fluidifier l’expérience de voyage, en réduisant les délais d’attente et les procédures manuelles, tout en renforçant la sécurité et l’efficacité opérationnelle. De la reconnaissance faciale à l’approbation numérique des visas, ces innovations transforment la mobilité internationale. Aéroports, compagnies aériennes et autorités touristiques adoptent de plus en plus ces outils pour favoriser des déplacements rapides, sans contact et entièrement numériques. Mais cette quête d'efficacité soulève des questions essentielles. Qui contrôle les données biométriques ? Tous les voyageurs sont-ils traités équitablement par ces systèmes algorithmiques ? Que se passe-t-il lorsque l’infrastructure technologique progresse de manière inégale entre régions ? Les enjeux liés à la confidentialité, à l’accessibilité et à la souveraineté numérique demeurent au cœur des débats internationaux.
Cette session thématique invite des intervenants à explorer les implications de la biométrie et des e-Visas pour l’industrie du tourisme. Les échanges porteront sur la mise en œuvre opérationnelle, les cadres réglementaires, l’expérience des voyageurs, ainsi que les dynamiques géopolitiques de la mobilité numérique.
Frictionless Frontiers: Biometrics, e-Visa Systems, and the End of the Travel Queue?
Biometric authentication, automated immigration gates, and e-Visa systems are rapidly redefining how borders are crossed and how travellers are processed. These technologies aim to create seamless travel experiences, reducing waiting times and manual procedures, while enhancing border security and operational efficiency. From fingerprint scanning and facial recognition to fully digital visa approvals, such innovations are reshaping the movement of people across countries. Airports, airlines, and tourism authorities are increasingly adopting these tools to facilitate smoother journeys, especially in post-pandemic recovery efforts. The ambition: a frictionless future where identity verification is fast, contactless, and paperless. However, these advancements also raise important concerns. Who controls biometric data? Are all travellers treated equally by algorithmic systems? What happens when infrastructure is adopted unevenly across regions? Questions around data privacy, accessibility, digital sovereignty, and ethical governance remain at the forefront of global debate.
This panel session invites speakers to discuss the implications of biometric and e-Visa technologies for the tourism industry. Perspectives may include operational readiness, regulatory developments, traveller experiences, privacy concerns, and the broader geopolitical context of digital mobility.
Chair
Prof. Dr. Neethiahnanthan Ari Ragavan
Taylor's University, Malaysia
Stéphanie Bensalem
University Toulouse - Jean Jaurès (ISTHIA), France
TBA
Panelists
TBA
TBA
02
Gastronomy
Fusion ou Confusion ? La Fine Limite entre Innovation et Appropriation
La gastronomie mondiale s’est toujours nourrie de croisements culturels. Ingrédients, techniques et récits circulent au-delà des frontières. La cuisine fusion, désormais omniprésente, est saluée pour sa créativité et sa portée commerciale. Toutefois, cette démarche soulève une question délicate : à partir de quand l’inspiration devient-elle une forme d’appropriation culturelle ? Cette session thématique interroge les tensions entre innovation culinaire et propriété culturelle. Dans un secteur où les traditions sont souvent reconditionnées à des fins commerciales, quels récits sont valorisés, et lesquels sont effacés ? Comment différencier l’hommage respectueux de la récupération opportuniste, surtout dans un contexte marqué par l’héritage colonial, les mobilités migratoires et les inégalités historiques ?
Les intervenants sont invités à réfléchir à la gastronomie comme pratique artistique mais aussi comme acte politique. Les débats pourront aborder la réinvention de recettes patrimoniales, les inégalités dans la reconnaissance culinaire, ou encore les tensions entre marchés mondialisés et légitimes détenteurs des savoir-faire locaux. À travers le prisme du tourisme, de la marque et de l’identité, cette session pose la question de la responsabilité de ceux qui interprètent, consomment et commercialisent les saveurs des autres.
Fusion or Confusion? The Fine Line Between Innovation and Appropriation
Global gastronomy has long thrived on exchange. Ingredients migrate, techniques travel, and chefs experiment across borders. Fusion cuisine, once a niche curiosity, is now a global phenomenon—celebrated in fine dining and street food alike. But beneath its polished presentation lies a more difficult question: when does creative interpretation slide into cultural appropriation? This panel session critically examines how culinary innovation intersects with issues of cultural ownership, erasure, and power. In an industry that frequently commodifies tradition for profit, whose stories are served, and whose are silenced? How do we distinguish between homage and misrepresentation, especially when historical legacies of colonisation, migration, and inequality remain deeply embedded in the plate?
Speakers are invited to reflect on gastronomy as both an artistic practice and a political act. Discussions may address the ethics of rebranding heritage dishes, the asymmetries of culinary credit, and the tensions between global markets and local custodianship. As food becomes a medium for branding, tourism, and identity-making, this session asks what responsibilities lie with those who curate, consume, and capitalise on the tastes of others.
Chair
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cyrille Laporte
University Toulouse - Jean Jaurès, CERTOP UMR-CNRS, France
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Frederic Zancanaro
University Toulouse - Jean Jaurès (ISTHIA), France
TBA
Panelists
TBA
03
Hospitality
Hospitalité Anticipative : IA, Technologies Émotionnelles et Expérience Client Prédictive pour un Futur Hyper-Personnalisé
L’hospitalité entre dans une nouvelle phase : celle où le service n’attend plus la demande, mais l’anticipe. Grâce à l’intelligence artificielle, à l’analyse des émotions et aux technologies prédictives, l’expérience client s’oriente vers une hyper-personnalisation, réactive non seulement aux préférences mais aussi aux humeurs et aux comportements implicites. Cette session thématique examine les enjeux stratégiques et éthiques liés à cette hospitalité « augmentée ». Lorsque les systèmes d’IA commencent à décoder les signaux émotionnels et à prédire les attentes, la relation humaine risque de céder la place à une automatisation invisible. Que gagne-t-on en fluidité et en précision ? Que perd-on en authenticité et en lien humain ?
Les intervenants sont invités à analyser la manière dont ces technologies transforment les opérations hôtelières, les interfaces clients et les programmes de fidélisation. Les thèmes abordés pourront inclure les dispositifs biométriques, les conciergeries intelligentes, les enjeux de consentement et de protection des données, ainsi que les limites entre sollicitude réelle et réactivité programmée. Au cœur de cette discussion se trouve une question centrale : quel rôle pour l’humain dans l’hospitalité de demain ?
Anticipatory Hospitality: AI, Emotion Tech, and Predictive Guest Experience for a Hyper-Personalized Future
Hospitality is entering an era where service no longer reacts but anticipates. Powered by artificial intelligence, sentiment analysis, and emotion-sensing technologies, the guest experience is increasingly shaped around hyper-personalization—attuned not only to preferences but to moods, behaviours, and unspoken expectations. This panel session examines the strategic and ethical implications of anticipatory design in hospitality. As AI systems begin to interpret emotional cues and forecast desires, service shifts from relational engagement to predictive automation. What is gained when hospitality becomes seamless and perceptive? What is lost when emotional connection is simulated or outsourced?
Speakers are invited to explore how emotion tech and predictive analytics are transforming hotel operations, guest interfaces, and loyalty programs. Topics may include biometric feedback systems, AI-based concierge models, data privacy, and the fine boundary between meaningful care and programmed responsiveness. At stake is not only the future of guest satisfaction but the principles that underpin authentic hospitality.
Chair
Panelists
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Paul-Emmanuel Pichon
University Toulouse - Jean Jaurès (ISTHIA), CERTOP UMR-CNRS, France
Laurent Barthe
University Toulouse - Jean Jaurès (ISTHIA), France
TBA
TBA
TBA
Panelist Biographies
Panel Session 1
Stéphanie Bensalem
A certified tourism teacher and globetrotter, Stéphanie Bensalem has been a specialist in tourism techniques for over 25 years, following experience in the hotel industry in Asia. As a member of the working group responsible for reforming the French Higher National Diploma in Tourism qualification between 2009 and 2012, she is involved in its implementation. Through international partnerships, she has collaborated with professionals in the tourism sector and the teaching teams at the Hotel School of Mauritius and the École Paul Dubrule in Cambodia. In 2021, Stéphanie Bensalem joined ISTHIA as a lecturer in a variety of fields, including the role of tourism stakeholders, travel creation and design, event organisation, airline ticketing, professional development workshops and project support. She is also the course supervisor of both the Licence 1 Tourism, Hospitality and Food Studies and the Bachelor's degree in Tourism Management and Solutions in Toulouse.
Panel Session 2
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Frederic Zancanaro
Dr. Frédéric Zancanaro is an associate professor in sociology at Toulouse – Jean Jaurès University (France) and a member of CERTOP (Centre for Research on Work, Organisation and Power), UMR-CNRS 5044. He teaches at ISTHIA (School of Tourism, Hospitality management and Food Studies). His research activity is at the crossroads of the sociology of food, the sociology of innovation and the sociology of art. It deals with a “noble” issue (artistic creation) applied to a fundamentally perceived, prosaic or trivial object, food. In many cultures, fasting is what uplifts. Showing that culinary creation can bring food to a certain transcendence and by what means (technical, symbolic, rhetorical), constitutes the object of his research. More specifically, he is committed to studying the creative process within gastronomy by identifying the chefs' postures, trends and culinary styles. His research tries to show how the dispositions, the context and the subjective perception of this context in the gastronomic arena, enlighten the artistic intentions of the chefs. In 2019, he was the author of Culinary creativity: The three Michelin stars (PUFR Publishing, Tours, Collection: Tables des hommes, 444 p.).
Panel Session 3
Laurent Barthe
coming soon..
Chair Biographies
Panel Session 1
Prof. Dr. Neethiahnanthan Ari Ragavan
coming soon..
Panel Session 2
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Cyrille Laporte
Associate Professor Dr. Cyrille Laporte is the Dean of the Toulouse School of Hospitality, Tourism and Food Studies (ISTHIA) at the University Toulouse - Jean Jaurès, in France. ISTHIA trains students in the fields of tourism, hotel management, and food. The institute also offers continuing education, supports research activities, and sets up international mobility programmes for students and staff. In addition, Dr. Cyrille is a sociologist at the CERTOP laboratory (UMR CNRS 5044) at the University Toulouse - Jean Jaurès and a member of the Chair of Food Studies: Food, Cultures & Health at Taylor's Toulouse University Center. His research activities focus on the technical management of food in eating-out contexts, in France and internationally.
Panel Session 3
Assoc. Prof. Dr. Paul-Emmanuel Pichon
Dr Paul-Emmanuel Pichon is Associate Professor in Marketing at ISTHIA, University Toulouse - Jean Jaurès, since 2007. After studying hotel and restaurant management, then marketing, he obtained his PhD in Marketing from the Toulouse School of Management (formerly IAE de Toulouse, part of the University Toulouse 1 Capitole) in 2006. He is Programm Director for the Master's degree in Hotel and Restaurant Management. He teaches marketing in France and abroad. He is a member of CERTOP (Centre d'Etude et de Recherche Travail Organisation Pouvoir UMR CNRS 5044). In 2016, he published with various authors the book “Marketing du tourisme et de l'accueil” (6th Edition, Pearson Education). His research focuses on consumer risk perception and reduction strategies (including food and wine consumers, as well as tourists and travelers), and the role of nostalgic trust in consumer reassurance strategies. Her research also focuses on influence marketing, as well as e-communication policies (social networks, videos, etc.).