Cornell Hospitality Health and Design Symposium

Cornell Hospitality Health and Design Symposium, October 9-11, 2016.

Although the words “hospitality” and hospital” invoke very different emotions, they stem from the same root word in Latin, hospes, meaning “guest” or “host”. While the hospitality and healthcare industries have evolved quite differently over the centuries, they continue to share many common characteristics. For example, both industries need to take care of the unique needs of their guests by proving comfortable lodging, food-service, privacy / security and many other similar amenities and supplementary services. Each industry can provide unique opportunities for companies operating in the other industry because of evolving customer preferences / business dynamics and changing regulations and policies. Many new industry segments are emerging at the interface of hospitality and healthcare – they include senior housing and care; wellness and medical tourism; and concierge medicine; to name a few.

The purpose of this conference therefore is to bring together academic scholars and industry leaders who have interest in exploring the rapidly evolving dynamics of hospitality and healthcare industries. Furthermore, we believe that design thinking provides an effective approach for exploring this exciting topic from both academic and practitioners’ perspectives.

This symposium is co-chaired by Rohit Verma, Mardelle Shepley and Brooke Hollis. The advisory board for HHDS2016 comprises of Sr. executives from the hospitality, health and design industries and academic scholars from leading universities around the world.