When we hear anyone mentioning a successful career in the hospitality and tourism industry, the majority of us may immediately think of some sorts of supervisory positions, starting with full-time manager up to the very top executive post. Yet, this article is not another success story of a General Manager at a 5-star property somewhere on the Galapagos Islands, but a former HTMi student who found his own road to success.
Kiattipoom (Poom) Kiatkawsin, from Thailand and a former restaurant manager in Nürnberg, Germany joined the HTMi family back in 2012. He studied the Post-graduate Diploma in Events Management. After, he went on to a successful internship with one of Switzerland’s largest conference organisers – CONGREX.
Poom attained his first academic experience in the Research Assistant role at HTMi, which he undertook straight after his MSc semester. This meant a lot of pressure. He had to allocate time and effort in writing his dissertation and assisting other students with their research simultaneously.
After three years of hard work and commitment, he successfully defended his PhD Thesis titled: “Seeking Prestige at Michelin-starred Restaurants – An Interdisciplinary Investigation of Luxury Restaurant-consumer Behaviours”. Furthermore, during his time as a PhD student, he published articles in top-tier hospitality and management journals such as Tourism Management, International Journal of Hospitality Management, and Journal of Travel and Tourism Marketing, among others.
He also won several awards at international conferences, including distinguished paper awards at the Academy of Global Hospitality and Tourism Conference in 2017 and excellent paper award at the World Conference on Hospitality, Tourism and Event Research (WHTER) and the International Convention and Expo Summit (ICES) in 2015. Despite these accomplishments, Poom said, “I never thought about a career in academia before. HTMi surely contributed significantly to where I am today”.
Now Poom is Assistant Professor at Sejong University in Korea, a research university whose hospitality and tourism research centre is top rated by the country’s research foundations. Poom always advocates that, “HTMi is not just laying a path to work at hotels but also paths for those who would like an alternative career in hospitality and tourism such as in academia. HTMi is capable and willing to support everyone inside the hospitality and tourism discipline”.