Abstract:

During COVID-19 (Bao, 2020), the pervasive incorporation of webinars and other online training that have facilitated access and open dissemination of knowledge has had a significant impact on university training (Rapanta et al., 2020). As a result of these modifications, there will be a greater emphasis on hybrid teaching strategies and an increase in expert-focused instructional aids such as webinars.

Webinars facilitates connection with students and comprehension of knowledge applied to practise from various professional vantage points (Wang & Hsu, 2008). Such instruments have become prevalent in the tourism industry at the professional level and have also been incorporated into university studies (Poddubnaya et al., 2020). This type of instrument provides a fundamental element in the case of specialised subjects in the professional field that require exhaustive knowledge of operations and daily practise; for this reason, it is advantageous, in certain subjects, such as Departmental Operations, to have the participation of professionals through the organisation of seminars and conferences. Previous research demonstrated that the participation of industry professionals in university tourism studies enhances student learning and simultaneously introduces new timely topics into the curriculum (Lee & Joung, 2017; Mei, 2019).

In order to analyse the impact of webinars in tourism undergraduate students following the subject entitled Accommodation and Provisioning Businesses or Accommodation Management, this research aims to investigate the implementation of an inter-university webinar to better understand happiness management strategies and its linked with SDGs. This webinar was based on the ARTIEM hotel chain and it was held openly. To this end, this research analised the impact of the webinar on students based on quantative methods. For this purpose, an online questionnaire was designed based on a Likert Scale from 1 to 6. The questionnaire was distributed to the webinar attendees.

The obtained results indicate that the proposed activity successfully transmits to the students the values on which ARTIEM's hotel management is based (sustainability, innovation, personal wellbeing, and customer and employee happiness), particularly in the areas of innovation and happiness, where over 80% of the responses were positive. Similarly, the results demonstrate that the webinar aids in the learning of the subject both generally and specifically in the aspects related to hotel operations and management from the various perspectives existing within the structure of a hotel, as well as boosting the students' interest in entering the hospitality industry professionally.

In conclusion, industry specialists are not only excellent transmitters of knowledge, but also excellent carriers of values. Therefore, selecting companies and/or professionals who practise the SDGs has a significant impact on students, in our opinion. Given the incorporation of videoconferencing platforms into our lives as a result of Covid, it is proposed as a practical implication that, in addition to the organisation of webinars, which are more difficult to manage, professionals be integrated into the subject matter via video calls using these tools. It has also been discovered that this activity has led to high student satisfaction and increased their interest in the subject and hotel industry.

Keywords:

Webinar, SDGs, Tourism studies, hotel management.