Hou Cynthia

Biography

Dr. Cynthia Hou joined the School of Hotel and Tourism Management, Chinese University of Hong Kong (CUHK) in September 2015. Before her current position, she worked as a Post-doctoral fellow at the Department of Civil Engineering at HKU, a post she took up after completing her PhD studies in the Department of Real Estate and Construction at HKU in September 2013. Teaching She is now teaching three courses, including Hospitality Facilities Planning and Management, Mastering Service Excellence and Strategic Facilities Development and Management. She had developed her passion in teaching during her PhD studies in HKU as a tutor for a Common Core Course entitled Property Rights, Built Heritage and Sustainable Development. She was also employed as a part-time Lecturer for the joint Honorary Bachelor Degree Program in Engineering and Management jointly offered by Edinburgh Napier University and the HKU School of Professional and Continuing Education. Her teaching workload included a combination of classroom teaching, thesis supervision, and tutorial format supervision work. With such a diverse range of teaching experience, she has become a versatile teacher, and have been well-received by fellow instructions and students alike due to the way she balance helpful instruction, fairness in evaluation and meeting educational objectives. Aside from classroom teaching, she also extends the teaching outside classroom and organizes field trips for students to witness professional real estate and facilities management in practice. She encourages students to connect the management theories with real life practice. The activities have enjoyed great popularity among students. Research She has been trained to conduct independent research for a number of funded research projects. During her time as a Post-doctoral fellow, she had attained abundance of team-based consultancy projects entitled as Development of The Hong Kong Green Building Product Labelling Scheme funded by Hong Kong Green Building Council and Establishing a Hong Kong Based Carbon Labelling Framework for Construction Materials funded by Hong Kong Construction Industry Council. The experience of working closely with different researchers and stakeholders from the real estate and construction industry have enabled her to develop the rapport within a team that is necessary to successfully achieving meaningful results in research projects, as well as for understanding green practices in the real estate and construction industry in Hong Kong. Currently, she is working on one industry-based project funded by Hong Kong Institute of Surveying, entitled as The Effective Use of Web-based Tool for Property Management Companies in Hong Kong, and a Small Funding Project by HKU, entitled A Social Network and BIM Enabled Collaboration System for Residential Building Refurbishment. She has engaged in a number of research areas, including facilities management, service outsourcing, strategic management in property and facilities management, sustainability in Hotel Management, Sustainable Tourism Management etc. She has committed considerable effort to publishing academic papers in renowned academic journals in real estate and built environment studies, including International Journal of Strategic Property Management, Habitat International, the International Journal of Supply Chain Management, Facilities, etc.

Research Interest

Global Economics