HTM Award helps graduate become a published researcher

Thanks to an award that helps to hire and train a student at the Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Research (opens in new window) , recent graduate Katherine Lo (HTM, 2019) was able to get the research paper she co-authored published in a journal. 

As a Dean’s List student in the Ted Rogers School of Hospitality & Tourism Management, Lo received the William B. Pattison Research Fellowship worth $10,000 in 2018. This award is given to a student to work as a Research Assistant in the Institute for Hospitality and Tourism Research in the Fall and Winter term. The recipient must commit to work 16 hours a week in the Institute in the following year. William Pattison is best known in Canada for founding Delta Hotels Ltd. in 1962 with four partners, and serving as president and CEO until 1988.

With the support of this award, Lo was able to work on a research study related to luxury hotel service gaps in Canadian hotels with Dr. Frederic Dimanche, Director of HTM program. Their resulting research paper, "The Elusive Search for Talent: Skill Gaps in the Canadian Luxury Hotel Sector (external link, opens in new window) ,” was recently published in the journal Tourism and Hospitality. 

“Over three years ago, Dr. Dimanche and I began researching skills gaps in luxury in order to address the need in the Canadian labour market to have more robust training programs for those pursuing careers in high-end service environments,” explains Lo. “I am so grateful that he had this idea and pushed me in doing this research during my undergrad.” 

“Greatest of all, Dr. Dimanche made sure that our research could have a tangible impact,” she adds. “We've presented our findings at an international conference in Europe, a course in the Ted Rogers School HTM program was born to address these skills gaps and we even won an award for the research two and a half years before publishing it.”