The School of Hotel and Tourism Management (SHTM) at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University will host a joint forum and workshop on AI for smart hospitality, tourism, and culture on Friday, 18 September 2026. The event, organized with Korea-based AI research community Pseudo Lab, brings together academics, students, AI developers, and industry practitioners from Hong Kong and Korea for a full day of panels, seminars, and hands-on technical training. Registration is free, with a deadline of 7 September 2026 at 11:59 pm HKT.
The forum addresses a concrete gap: how AI is actually researched and deployed in hospitality settings, what challenges both academia and industry face, and where future collaboration can go. Pseudo Lab, one of Korea's largest non-profit AI and data-science communities, draws participants from organizations including NVIDIA Korea, KRAFTON, HDC Labs, Shinhan DS, and NC AI.
Programme structure and sessions
The day opens at 9:30 a.m. with a joint panel session, "AI × Hospitality, Tourism & Culture: Hong Kong-Korea Perspectives," on the 4th floor of the Che-woo Lui Hotel and Tourism Resource Centre. Light snacks and drinks will be provided. Advance registration is required for this session.
A hands-on multi-agent workshop runs from 1:00 p.m. to 2:30 p.m. in room TH301 on the 3rd floor. Participants will follow a prepared example to build an AI agent team, then customize its goal, roles, and prompts to create a new team. Capacity is capped at 50 people on a first-come, first-served basis. Advance registration is also required for this workshop.
Two plenary seminar tracks fill the afternoon. The first, from 2:30 p.m. to 4:00 p.m., covers industry-focused topics including AI translations, visual content generation, and tourism trends. The second, from 4:30 p.m. to 6:00 p.m., shifts to research and causal inference, with talks on generative AI and LLM applications in online reviews and restaurant survival prediction. Coffee and tea will be served during both afternoon sessions.
Who should attend
The forum is designed for professionals working across hospitality, tourism, and cultural sectors who want to understand how AI tools are moving from research papers into operational use. The Korea-Hong Kong exchange format also offers a rare chance to compare deployment approaches across two major Asian markets with very different technology ecosystems and tourism patterns.
For those working in AI for hospitality and events, the hands-on multi-agent workshop provides immediate, practical exposure to building AI agent teams - a skill that translates directly to automating guest communications, coordinating event logistics, or managing real-time service requests. The research track's focus on causal inference and restaurant survival prediction also speaks to the kind of data-driven decision-making that revenue managers and operations directors increasingly need.
Why this matters for hospitality and events professionals
The forum doesn't just talk about AI in the abstract. The multi-agent workshop gives attendees a working system they can adapt to their own use cases, whether that's handling guest inquiries, generating event content, or coordinating back-of-house operations. The industry talks on visual content generation and AI translations address two pain points that any hotel marketing team or event organizer faces daily: producing high-quality imagery at scale and communicating accurately with international guests. The research track offers a longer view - which AI techniques actually predict business outcomes, and which don't - that can sharpen investment decisions when evaluating technology vendors.
Inquiries about the event can be directed to co-organizers Wangoo Lee at wangoo.lee@polyu.edu.hk or Chanran Kim at chanrankim@pseudo-lab.com.
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