AN ASSISTANT professor of the University of Santo Tomas presented her research paper on marine heritage sites in southeast Asia at the first Academe Partners’ Research Training Seminar Output organized by the Tourism Knowledge Center of Rajah Travel Corporation.

Dr. Jinky Rose Gino-gino’s paper was titled “Revitalizing Southeast Asia’s UNESCO Marine World Heritage Sites: A Basis for Proposed Tourism Development Blueprint on Sustainable Tourism through Preservation and Promotion of Material and Non-Material Culture in the Post-COVID Era under ASEAN’s Sustainable Tourism Development Framework.”

Her study focused on revitalizing the selected UNESCO Marine World Heritage Sites through sustainable tourism.

It evaluated the current state of developmental plans and assessed challenges and opportunities “for preservation, emphasizing the importance of integrating sustainability into tourism policies.”

Gino-gino is from the university’s Department of Tourism Management and the Research Center for Culture, Arts and Humanities.

Co-hosted by the Lyceum of the Philippines University Manila, the event aimed to assist educational institutions in strengthening and building their capacity, enhancing collaboration with other organizations and disseminating research papers and journals.

“This initiative is envisioned to create a more profound culture of research and encourage the production of more academic research that tackles the issues confronting the tourism industry and allows the formulation of strategic business and policy frameworks,” UST said.

“Recognizing that tourism is now a major pillar driving economic growth, increasing knowledge on research and consequently developing quality research outputs have become a paramount concern,” it added.